As the government prepares to officially recognise Rohingya martyr Nur Mostafa, who was shot dead during the July 2024 uprising, the symbolic act marks a historic moment for Bangladesh.
Nur, born and raised in Eidgaon of Cox's Bazar, was the son of Rohingya refugees who had fled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar in the early '90s. He was shot on August 5, joining a protest near the Eidgaon Police Station.
While his name is now set to enter the official record—confirmed by Mahfuj Alam, adviser to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting—the story of how it got there is one of relentless grassroots activism.
Behind this recognition lies the efforts of July Records, a youth-led platform, and other organisations that campaigned for his name to be included.
July Records has been collecting, preserving, and amplifying stories from the July movement, especially those in danger of being erased from public memory.
The grassroots campaign of July Records and other platforms, such as the Students Alliance for Democracy (SAD) and Empowering Our Fighters, has paved the way for the mass uprising to go beyond its national boundary.
As what began as protests against quota discrimination soon morphed into a social movement for deeper political reforms, civil rights, and justice, millions of people across the country, from the centre to the fringe, have involved themselves or found themselves drawn to the cause.
It is in this bottom-up, pluralistic and kaleidoscopic version of events that the founders of July Records were alarmed to preserve, which they feared would be squeezed out of the official narratives, as one government may discard the narrative of the other.
"A myriad of emotions, desires, and hopes were on display as the movement intensified. But after 5 August, as the days went by and a new political landscape coalesced, it became painfully clear that tending to the victims of July was not a priority anymore," Kazi Wali Ullah, one of the organisers of the platform, told Dhaka Stream.
"We aim to accumulate the untold stories of July by giving the people without a platform an opportunity to speak for themselves and preserve the unfabricated accounts of events as authentic documentation for history," he added.
Since their formation in December, they have conducted 130 in-depth interviews, some lasting up to two hours. The interviewees include families of martyrs, wounded individuals, and eyewitnesses. One such family was of Rohingya Martyr Nur Mostofa.
Finding and fleshing out Nur's story
On 14 March, July Records first discovered the tale of Nur Mostafa, as they were on the lookout for local martyrs of Chattogram and published it on their Facebook page on the same night. Coincidentally, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, together with UN Secretary-General António Guterres, visited the Rohingya camp in Cox's Bazar on the very same day as part of his Bangladesh Ramadan Solidarity Tour, according to July records.
In a follow-up to the story, they published a written interview of his mother, Nur Begum, on 26 March and a video interview of his father on 29 March on social platforms.
"When we heard Nur's name was not listed, because his only fault was that he was not a legal citizen of Bangladesh, despite his family having been living here since the 90s, we made it our mission to never stop talking about him. We wanted to use everything at our disposal to honour his memory, as he gave up everything for us," said Kazi Wali.
In 1992, Nur Mostafa's father, Shafiul Alam, fled ethnic cleansing in Myanmar and settled in Eidgaon upazila of Cox's Bazar. It was there that his wife, Nur Begum, gave birth to Nur in 2007.
Born and raised here, 17-year-old Nur was a 10th-grade madrasa student preparing to sit for the Dakhil exam.
On August 5, when he joined the protest, ignoring his father's warnings, Nur was shot in front of Eidgaon Police Station in Cox's Bazar. He died in a hospital a day later.
"He didn't own a phone. On August 5, he somehow managed to get a phone and showed me a picture of Abu Syed getting shot. He told me they were students as well. If they could take bullets, why couldn't I? Why did you scold me before?" said Shafiul Alam, Nur Mostafa's father, in the recorded interview with July Records.
"Just as others have been martyred for the country and honoured accordingly, I want my son to be given that same respect— I have no other wish. What would I do with money?...," he added, with teary eyes.
Persistent activism
Ever since they published the interviews, they stepped up their activism and knocked on doors to get themselves heard, with a faint hope that someone from the top might pick up on the story.
Aside from regular posts on social media and publishing multiple reports, on 29 March, a human chain was formed at Biplob Udyan in Chattogram through a joint initiative of July Records and the Students Alliance for Democracy (SAD).
On 4 April, a joint petition by July Records and Empowering Our Fighters was submitted to the Adviser for Liberation War Affairs.
On 17 April, July Records and the Student Alliance for Democracy held a human chain in front of the Raju Memorial Sculpture on the Dhaka University campus, demanding his immediate recognition.
On 26 April, the Anti-Hegemony Muslim Unity Platform held a rally at the National Press Club in Dhaka. At that event, organiser Muhammad Mizanur Rahman called on the interim government to honour Nur Mostafa.
Until the government officially recognised Nur's sacrifice, they continued to reach out to people, persuading them of their cause, which led to widespread support on social media, with many posting photos of themselves holding placards.
Debasish Chakraborti, the prominent artist to represent July to the world during the movement, published a digital poster demanding Nur Mostafa's recognition.
Implications
"We have been striving to establish the unrecognised, ethnically discriminated and little-known Nur Mostafa as one of the key figures of the July uprising— and we have succeeded in doing so," remarked Sulaim Mahmood, another organiser of July Records, crediting collective effort for the achievement.
The recognition of Nur Mostafa is more than symbolic. In 2024, the July uprising unfolded as an ongoing historical process of building national identity, as people of this country are still asking themselves what it means to be a Bangladeshi, to belong to a post-colonial country embedded in religious and ethnic diversity.
Nur Mostafa's recognition will add to the negotiation of defining what it means to belong.
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