Abbas Ali Khan

Abbas Ali Khan was born in 1914 in Joypurhat Thana, Bogra District, Bengal Presidency, British India. In 1925, he passed high matriculation examination from Hooghly Madrasah.^[1][2] Ten years after examination, he acquired B.A degree from Carmichael College.^[1] Then he became a civil servant and worked for Indian government from 1936 to 1947. He also became secretary of A.K. Fazlul Huq, first prime minister of Bengal.^[2] In 1955, eight years after the independence of Pakistan, he became a member of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan and later he became ameer of its branch of Rajshahi Division.^[1] In 1962, Khan became member of the 3rd National Assembly of Pakistan representing Dinajpur-Bogra.^[3][4] In 1971, he was made deputy ameer of the East Pakistan Jamaat-e-Islami, provincial branch of the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan.^[1] During the Bangladesh Liberation War, he was appointed as education minister in the Malik ministry, the last cabinet of East Pakistan.^[5][6] After the independence of Bangladesh, on 24 December 1971, he was arrested by the government for collaborating with Pakistan during the war.^[7] On 30 November 1973, the government announced a general amnesty for detained cabinet members, and he was released.^[8] In 1979, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was established and he became senior nayeeb-e-ameer of the party.^[2] He also became acting ameer at the time.^[9] In 1991, Ghulam Azam was elected as ameer and Khan's responsibility as acting ameer ended. But then government arrested him in 1992 and Khan became acting ameer again for 16 months.^[10][11][2] Khan died in Dhaka on 3 October 1999 of liver cirrhosis.^[2]