sandbar and other emerging islands in the Bay of Bengal, over which both India and Bangladesh claimed sovereignty, remained under the authority of Bangladesh. He is also known for reducing piracy in the Bay of Bengal and was responsible for maintaining the security of the Bay and the Sundarbans
.
Early life and family
Khan was born into a wealthy
Jalalpur, Sylhet District (present-day Bangladesh) located in the British Raj's Assam Province. He was the youngest child among the three children of Ahmed Ali Khan and Jubaida Khatun. Khatun was the daughter of Khan Bahadur Wasiuddin Ahmad. In 1901, Ahmad Ali Khan became the first Muslim barrister in Sylhet. Ahmad Ali Khan was also the President of the Assam Congress and represented the All-India Muslim League
In 1952, Khan joined the executive branch of the Pakistan Navy as a cadet. He received his training in a military school in
Queen Elizabeth II awarded him for being a disciplined officer[citation needed]. In 1964, he became the torpedo and anti-submarine officer of PNS Tippu Sultan. From 1967 to 1968, he served the Pakistan Navy as the Joint Chiefs' Secretariat staff officer in the Defence Ministry in Rawalpindi. In 1970, he became the officer in charge of the torpedo and anti-submarine school in the PNS Himalaya and in Karachi
he was the seaward defence officer.
During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, when East Pakistan seceded to become Bangladesh and went to war with West Pakistan for independence, Khan was still in West Pakistan. As a Bengali, his allegiance was questioned by the Pakistani government, so he and his family were kept under house arrest. After the war, with Bangladesh's victory in December 1971, he was kept under house arrest in Pakistan for a further two years until, in 1973, he managed to escape to Afghanistan, from where he went to India before finally returning to Bangladesh.
In Bangladesh, during the premiership of
chief of naval staff of the Bangladesh Navy on 4 November 1979. He was promoted to the rank of rear admiral
on 1 January 1980 .
As the naval chief, Khan worked hard to modernise the Bangladesh Navy. In the aftermath of the
Bhola cyclone
in 1970, a small uninhabited offshore sandbar landform called the South Talpatti sandbar emerged in the Bay of Bengal. Although it was uninhabited and there were no permanent settlements or stations located in the sandbar, both India and Bangladesh claimed sovereignty because of speculation over the existence of oil and natural gas in the region. Under Khan, the sandbar remained under Bangladeshi authority. The Bangladesh Navy, under Khan, was also able to bring down many pirates who were operating in the Bay of Bengal. He also took measures to maintain the security of the Sundarbans.
During the presidency of Rahman, besides being the head of the navy, Khan was the minister of telecommunications. He was also a member of Zia's temporarily formed political party called
Hussain Mohammad Ershad, took over the government as chief martial law administrator by overthrowing the civilian government of Zia's vice-president and successor, President Abdus Sattar, in a bloodless coup on 24 March 1982. As the chief martial law administrator, Ershad installed a retired judge,A. F. M. Ahsanuddin Chowdhury, as president on 27 March 1982. Under this regime, Khan was appointed a deputy chief martial law administrator.[2] At that time, he also became an adviser in the Ministry of Communications; he was made a minister of that ministry on 10 July 1982. Even after General Ershad took over the presidency in December 1983, Khan continued in this ministerial role in the Ministry of Communications until 1 June 1984.[3] During Ershad's presidency, the chief of naval staff was also the minister of agriculture
, while investigating an air crash in the airport area
On 6 August 1984, Khan went to the then
Dhaka International Airport in Dhaka to investigate an air crash. While investigating the air crash, he had a heart attack and was taken to the Combined Military Hospital where he died at the age of 49. His burial place is at the Banani defence graveyard in Dhaka.[6]
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