Moudud Ahmed (1940-2021) *80

was a Bangladeshi lawyer and politician. He was a standing committee member of Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Ahmed was elected as a Jatiya Sangsad member total five times from Noakhali-1 and Noakhali-5 constituencies.

Ahmed served as the post master general of Bangladesh after independence. From the 1980's on he held numerous political offices for short stints in the Government of Bangladesh, including Deputy Prime Minister (1976–1978 and 1987–1988), Prime Minister of Bangladesh (1988–1989), Vice President of Bangladesh (1989–1990), and Minister of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs (2001–2006). Ahmed was born in 1940 in the Bengal Presidency during the British Raj. His father was a Sufi Islamic scholar and imam in Paribagh, Dacca. Ahmed obtained his BA and MA in political science from the University of Dacca. He was called to the English Bar at Lincoln's Inn in London in 1966.

While in the UK, Ahmed was part of a growing intellectual movement among East Pakistani students in envisioning an independent Bangladesh. After returning to Dacca, he joined the legal team of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman during the Agartala Conspiracy Case trial in 1968. He accompanied the Bengali delegation led by Sheikh Mujib to the Rawalpindi Round Table Conference with Field Marshal Ayub Khan in 1969. Ahmed witnessed many important developments in the run up to Bangladesh's independence. He joined the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in Calcutta during the 1971 Liberation War. He worked in its External Publicity Division. Ahmed addressed many humanitarian rallies for Bengali genocide victims. He once stirred an entire rally in London holding up a Daily Mirror article titled Birth of a Nation and crying out "we are alive, but we are not yet free".

Ahmed was one of the founding members of the 33 member Committee for Civil Liberties and Legal Aid which was established to protect the opposition politicians and members of civil society who were facing the wr