Sahibzada Shahid Sarwar Azam FIEB (; or শহীদ সারোয়ার আজম; born Muhammad Shahid Sarwar Azam Shah Jahan on 31 December 1952, sometimes spelled Mohammad Shaheed Sarwar Azam) is the current head of the Singranatore family.S. S. Roy (2011) A chronicle of Bengal's Ruling families. Calcutta
In his military career spanning three decades, he was in Deputy Command of the armed forces of the United Nations after the onset of the Sierra Leone Civil War in 2002 in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Republic Armed Forces and Police to provide support to the Special Court for Sierra Leone following the arrest of former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leaders and Government minister on charges of war crimes, and enforce the Community Arms Collection and Development Program introduced by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in collaboration with the local paramount chiefs where neighbouring conflicts in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Liberia had resulted in an influx of refugees in the area. His younger brother, a Lieutenant Colonel of the Bangladesh Army also served at the United Nations Mission in Sudan in 2005.
Following his service to the UN in West Africa, he commanded the Rajshahi and Khagrachari fronts of the Border Guard Bangladesh (then known as the Bangladesh Rifles) during clashes with the Banga Sena (Bengal Army) and Indian Border Security Force (BSF) in the North West and during the aftermath of the Shanti Bahini (Peace Army) operations in the South East. He was the first military officer of the Engineering Corps to be appointed as a Bangladesh Rifles Sector Commander in the history of the Bangladesh militaryRAOWA: Retired Army Officers Welfare Association Dhaka 2010 January and held the commands after the armed conflicts of 2001 but prior to the 2009 military massacre where all sector commanders, including both his incumbents were systematically shot and killed. In 2004, he held talks with the BSF of India protesting killings of unarmed people at the border, and pushing Indians in Bangladesh territory, smuggling, trespassing, drugs and arms trafficking between India and the People's Republic of Bangladesh. The same year, he presented a list of Bangladeshi fugitives in hiding in India in exchange for Indians hiding in Bangladesh. In 2005, along with General Jahangir Alam Chowdhury outright rejected the Indian High Commission claim of setting up border structures close to the zero line according to a former treaty. He then led the discussion to resolve this issues within the Indo-Bengali Treaty of 1975 with the Indian Forces.Border guidelines : Dhaka rejects Delhi's interpretation 17 March 2005
Early life and education Born on New Year's Eve, 1952 in Malabare Mansion, Azam was first educated privately before being sent to Rajshahi Collegiate School and then to Jhenidah Cadet College, a military boarding school by his father. He was in the first graduating class of the academy in 1968.pg 46 of JEXCA publication, 2007 As a cadet he was interrogated by the occupying Pakistani Army during the Great Liberation War of 1971. He was initially set on attending College of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering and being a cadet at Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul. On 7 March 1971, he viewed more than ten thousand Bengali demonstrators forcing their way into the Jhenidah Cadet College in demonstration.Qutubuddin Aziz (1974) :Blood and Tears, ch 24, pg 176, United Press of Pakistan His school principal, Lt Col Monzurur Rahman (a Bengali), and three teachers were shot and killed.pg 466 of JEXCA publication 2007 After graduating from the Bangladesh Military Academy and being commissioned into the Engineers Corps of the newly formed Bangladesh Army in 1976, he graduated from BUET in 1979 with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering.
Family He is married to Dr. Kamrun Nahar and has a daughter Shahzia Sarwar Shazi and a son, Sanwar Azam Sunny. He is the third son of Gulbadan Begum of Natore and Shamez Uddin Ahmed and is the brother-in-law to MM Rahmatullah through his elder sister, Gole Afroz. He is also a grandson of Jalaluddin Mirza. By marriage, he is a brother-in-law of American author and architect Saleh Uddin and a Co-brother of Major Raihanul Abedin.GuleAfrozCollege Prathista Porichiti 1996 page 30
Military career
Bangladesh Army After being directly commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Army in May 1976, he served at Rangpur, Saidpur, Jessore, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Savar, Gazipur and Chittagong military units and brigades, among others till 2002.
As a Major, he was the Staff officer to Brigadier Hannan Shah in Chittagong, (later BNP politician, minister and Advisor to Khaleda Zia, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh) in 1979, before he was removed from the military by Lt. General Hussain Muhammad Ershad following the assassination of General Ziaur Rahman, the President of Bangladesh in 1981 at the Chittagong Circuit House.
United Nations In 2002, Colonel Sarwar Azam became the Deputy Commander of the Bangladesh UN Sector in Sierra Leone in Africa. The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) was a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Sierra Leone from 1999 to 2005. It was created by the United Nations Security Council in October 1999 to help with the implementation of the Lomé Peace Accord, an agreement intended to end the Sierra Leonean civil war. UNAMSIL expanded in size several times in 2000 and 2001. It concluded its mandate at the end of 2005, the Security Council having declared that its mission was complete. The mandate was notable for authorising UNAMSIL to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence (albeit "within its capabilities and areas of deployment") – a return to a more proactive style of UN peacekeeping. Among others, its mission was to monitor adherence to the ceasefire in accordance with the ceasefire agreement (whose signing was witnessed by Jesse Jackson); and to provide support, as requested, to the elections, which are to be held in accordance with the present constitution of Sierra Leone
It was later revised to guard weapons, ammunition and other military equipment collected from ex-combatants and to assists in their subsequent disposal or destruction Upon withdrawal, the remaining staff in Freetown were transferred to United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL). In early 2003 at Magburaka, as Deputy Commander of UNAMSIL's Sector Centre, Colonel Azam informed the Force Commander that in spite of the recent indictments by the Special Court for Sierra Leone of former Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leaders and a Government minister on war crimes charges, the current security situation in the area was "calm and stable."
He said there was no significant reaction to the indictments by local leaders, the army or the police but assured the Acting Force Commander that his troops would continue to monitor the situation. The peacekeepers are also providing security and transport to the staff of the Court as they continue their investigations. The Acting Force Commander was also briefed on the Community Arms Collection and Development Programme recently introduced under the supervision of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in collaboration with local paramount chiefs. Under the program, local communities are encouraged to hand over weapons at designated dropping points, particularly shotguns, that were not covered under the UNAMSIL disarmament process.
Colonel Azam commended the co-operation his troops were getting from the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces and the Sierra Leone Police who are "quite active in maintaining law and order." According to Azam, conflicts in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Liberia have resulted in an influx of refugees in the sector. In his statement, the Force Commander commended the sector commander for the good work his troops were carrying out in the sector, noting that communities were gradually accepting the authority of local security agencies deployed throughout the sector.UNAMSIL Acting Force Commander Visits Tonoklili and Bombali Districts to Review Security Situation UN Press Briefing 21 March 2003
Azam's service ended in December 2003, and one of the two planes carrying the forces from Freetown, Sierra Leone crashed in Democratic Republic of the Congo killing 128 people and 15 peacekeepers from Bangladesh.U.N. Staff Among Victims of Benin Crash0United Nations UN Crash Azam and other commanders boarded the second plane as the first had problems while on the ground.
Bangladesh Rifles (now known as Border Guard) The 2001 Indian–Bangladeshi border conflict was a brief armed conflict in April 2001 between India and Bangladesh over the poorly marked international border between the countries. , it was the first and only such major conflict between the two countries who have maintained friendly relations since the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. The Partition of Bengal in 1947 left a poorly demarcated international border between India and Bangladesh (then-East Pakistan). Ownership of several villages on both sides of the de facto border were disputed and claimed by both countries. The dispute over the demarcation of the Indo-Bangladeshi border worsened due to the existence of over 190 enclaves.
One of the disputed areas was a small sliver of land near the village of Pyrdiwah which the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) had occupied since the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh. The village was one of the Indian exclaves near the border of Bangladesh with the Indian state of Meghalaya.Outsourcing to India – By Mark Kobayashi-HillaryThe Europa World Year Book 2003 – By Ed 2002 43rd, Taylor & Francis Group Bangladesh claimed that the village was within its territory.South Asia Nuclear Dialogue , nautilus.org Five battalions of the 19th division of the Bangladesh Army, with additional personnel from the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), attacked the positions of India's Border Security Force at Pyrdiwah at 01:00 hours on 16 April 2001.Indian foreign policy and its neighbours – By Jyotindra Nath Dixit India claimed that Bangladeshi troops overran and occupied the village, which was near the town of Dauki, and that Bangladeshi forces were holding more than 20 Indian soldiers hostage. However, Bangladesh insisted that Indian forces launched an early-morning attack on their posts in the frontier district of Kurigram, which lay on the border with the Indian state of Assam, on the morning of 16 April. Indian forces eventually responded but failed to retake the village. The combat remained limited to the border troops of the respective nations, though mortars were used in addition to automatic weapons fire. Between 10,000 and 20,000 villagers living in the area fled the fighting, with at least 17 suffering wounds. Several villages were destroyed or heavily damaged in the fighting. 16 Indian and 2 Bangladeshi troops died during the conflict. Top Indian border security sources claimed that the BDR personnel had retreated in the Meghalaya sector, while in the Assam sector, the Indian BSF had vacated positions seized from Bangladesh. Fresh clashes erupted along the India–Bangladesh border just hours after both sides voiced regret for the recent killings, but by midnight of 20 April firing had again stopped. An article reported that 6,000 Indian civilians had fled the region, and Indian government officials were attempting to convince villagers to return to their homes. The Indian BSF agreed to take back bodies of five of its soldiers at Rowmari sector, whilst the other 11–17 were classified as 'missing'. Bangladesh later agreed to return the dead Indian soldiers the next day. Upon examining the bodies of the dead personnel, India alleged that the BSF men were tortured before being shot dead. Three Bangladeshi soldiers were also killed: two during combat and another who died of wounds sustained during operations.