AFM Rezaul Karim Siddiquee was a professor of English at Rajshahi University. He was killed in an incident believed to have been carried out by Islamist terrorists, which observers have connected to a series of killings of people with ‘secularist outlook’ in Bangladesh. Professor Siddiquee was murdered with machetes on April 23, 2016, in the Shalbagan area of Rajshahi after he had been ambushed by assailants while on his way to the university. He was 61 years old.

Since his death, Rezaul’s family and colleagues, students, and employees of Rajshahi University have demanded justice, holding protests from time to time on the campus. They vowed to continue with their movement until they get justice for their beloved teacher.

However, on May 8, 2018, Justice Shirin Kabita Akhter of the speedy trial tribunal in Rajshahi condemned two members of Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh to death for the murder of Siddiquee. Shariful Islam, a former student at the University of Rajshahi, was one of the convicts, as was Maskawat Hasan. Three other defendants were given life sentences.

Siddiquee was born in 1955 at Bagmara, Rajshahi. He received his further education at Rajshahi University, where he acquired bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively in 1976 and 1977. Before joining the English department at Rajshahi University, Siddiquee taught at Faridpur Government Rajendra College from 1981 to 1983. He joined the department of English, University of Rajshahi, as a lecturer on March 16, 1983. He obtained his PhD from the university in 2000. Siddiquee had been the chair of the department from March 1, 2001 to February 29, 2004. He was promoted to professor in 2006. He was a great teacher, a great father and a great human being. He had unconditional love for his students, and enthusiasm for games and sports and music and films. Besides spreading the light of education, Dr Siddiquee was also interested in different co-curricular activities. He was the adviser to two cultural organisations — Arony Sangskritik Sangsad and Sundaram — and also the founding editor of Komal Gandhar, an arts and culture magazine. He used to play the sitar. He also established a music school at Bagmara. He was there for his students who played for the department without minding the weather. He always supported both the cricket and football teams no matter what the result was. Siddiquee was married to Hosne Ara Sheera and had two children, Riyasat Imtiaz Sourav and Rizwana Hasin Shotovi, who all survived him. He was known to his students as RKS.

‘RKS was a person, after all, with his fair share of peculiarities, one of which being his outspoken character,’ recalls one of his former pupils, Md Mijanur Rahman, who is presently teaching at a US university. Mijan goes on recollecting that he was maybe more forthright than the term implies. Even in the most formal occasions, he maintained his outspoken demeanour. He, however, never intended to damage anybody and never had any grudges against anyone. RKS’s teaching made us excellent citizens, his critical attitude enlightened us, his eccentricities delighted us, his love of music wowed us, and his camera continuously flashed at us, but his death still hurt us in ways that we will never recover from. His body had fallen, and he was technically dead, but the spirit he personified would go on for a long time.

Another student named Rashed Khan Milon writes: ‘All I can say in memory of our father like RKS sir is that you are one of the many reasons for which I have chosen teaching to be my profession… you were, you are, and you will ever remain immortal in the heart of your thousands of students…. I know you are in peace there. Please pray for us from there so that we can march on your shown path.’ Still another ex-student of the department Simon Ahmed observes: ‘I believe that human beings can be deceived for some time, but after a while, the difference between formality and genuine care shows clearly. We sensed genuine care. He truly loved us.’

I was present at that goodbye event when late professor Rezaul Karim Siddiquee passionately spoke this to his outgoing students in his final official speech. For him, the world and its people could never manage to be a little less harsh. He lectured: ‘… if people had been less callous, less selfish, less cruel, less self-centred, this world might have been a better world.’

What we should learn from this terrible murder of our professor is that an exclusivist understanding of identity makes one automatically suspicious of all ‘others’ which consequently threatens the possibility of peace and destabilises the existing harmony, order and mutual understanding among people or communities. It also creates a bar for individuals to explore and realise the full potential they have as individuals. Such a solitarist notion of identity — be it regional, religious, ethnic or cultural one — in essence defies the broader, inclusive, inter-dependent nature of human existence. When interpersonal relations are seen in singular intergroup terms, as amity or dialogue among civilisations or religious ethnicities, paying no attention to other groups to which the same person also belong, then much of importance in human life is altogether lost, and individuals are put into little boxes. We need to realise that identity is essentially plural and only accepting and celebrating these coexistence of various identity markers (sometimes which may very well be apparently contradictory) as a good way out of the restlessness and distrust that plague the local and global sites of violence.

The government is accountable for carrying out the judgement in Siddiqque’s murder case as quickly as possible. In this case, the authorities must act honestly since justice delayed is justice denied. On another important note, if exemplary actions and quick punishments are not ensured with highest possible sincerity, the question of academic freedom and security in public universities will remain unresolved. For any progressive government, that would be a shameful sight, indeed.

Md Rakibul Alam is a lecturer in English, Bangladesh Army University of Engineering and Technology, Qadirabad Cantonment, Natore.