A brilliant officer of Pakistan foreign service cadre joined Bangladesh foreign ministry on repatriation from Pakistan as Chief of Protocol in 1973 to replace Arshaduzzaman who was appointed Ambassador to Algeria. During his tenure as Chief of Protocol large number foreign dignitaries visited Bangladesh to see the newly emerged independent country following a bloody war of liberation.

The most important of those visitors was President Josef Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, who was one of the founder members of Non-Aligned Movement along with Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Soekarano of Indonesia and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Yugoslav president was accompanied by a 90 member delegation, including foreign minister, defence minister and political secretary to the president. Josef Broz Tito and his personal staff members stayed in Bangabhavan while his ministers and other members of the delegation stayed in the state guest houses. The visit took place from 24-29 January 1973. This writer was in the foreign ministry’s external publicity division as an Assistant Director and his services used to be requisitioned by the Chief of Protocol when such dignitaries visited Bangladesh. During the visit I was located at Padma guest house as host officer to look after the delegation’s needs. I came to know from the Yugoslav defence minister that Tito’s birth day was on 26 January. To give him a surprise I arranged with guest house caretaker Harris to send a bouquet of flowers through the Yugoslav President’s political secretary Alexander Sarkorak next morning while he left for the Bangabhavan to say to the Yugoslav a happy birth day. For a few second he kept quiet and thanked me profoundly and invited me to visit Belgrade as his guest.

This event was reported to Chief of Protocol Nazrul Islam by Yugoslav President’s political secretary. After the departure of Yugoslav delegation Nazrul Islam gave briefings on the conduct of officers and arrangement made by the government. Nazrul Islam praised me eloquently for my initiative to give the bouquet of flowers to the most powerful man in Tito’s administration.

During the visit Tito invited Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to attend Non-Aligned summit in Algeria from 5-9 September of 1973.

The second important visitor was Pakistan’s prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who came at the invitation of Bangladesh Prime Minister. During his visit I was again requisitioned by the Chief of Protocol and was posted at Bangabhavan. At one time the Chief of Protocol rushed to my allotted room and instructed to book a call to Sylhet Deputy Commissioner and ask him to find Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury, former foreign service officer who served as Private Secretary to Mr. Zulfiqar Bhutto when he was the foreign minister and send him to Dacca to participate in the talks with Bangladesh as instructed by Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury was attending the Kul Khani of his mother in Sylhet.

However, Kaiser Rashid Chowdhury flew to Dacca by next available Biman flight. Talks between Bangladesh and Pakistan were not successful on the question of asset sharing and taking back the Biharis from Bangladesh who opted for Pakistan.

Another important visitor was President Leopold Senghor of Senegal, a well known poet and statesman, from May 26—29 of 1974. I was placed as Protocol officer at Banghabavan as I spoke French. In his speech President Senghor praised Sheikh Mujibur Rahman for his steadfast courageous role for Bangladesh which had made him an institution. During state banquet I was assisting Madam Senghor. At the end of the visit President Leopold Senghor presented me a copy of his book: Nocturnes.

Chief of Protocol Nazrul Islam initiated letter of appreciation by Foreign Minister Dr. Kamal Hossain for working as protocol officers during the visit of a number of foreign dignitaries. I was one of the officers received appreciation letter from Foreign Minister Dr.Kamal Hossain. Nazrul Islam was in the habit of inviting me to accompany for lunch at his residence. On reaching the house his first duty was to enquire about his ailing mother if she was given medicine on time.

Incidentally, Nazrul Islam was a very good chess player. A chess board always remained on his desk in the office and whenever he managed some free time he tried to concentrate on a game of chess.

While serving as Ambassador in Kuwait, he was called back to headquarters to serve as Foreign Secretary in place of Mr. Fakhruddin Ahmad, who was in disagreement with President Gen. Ershad. Nazrul Islam joined on 9 May of 1987 as Foreign Secretary. During his tenure I was posted as First Secretary to Bangladesh embassy in Bucharest, Romania in July of 1987. In 1987 I was assigned to work in West Asia desk of Foreign Ministry because President Ershad decided to merge external publicity division of the foreign ministry with the ministry of information. That was another ill advised decision by President Ershad and it was reversed after he was deosed.

While I was serving as Deputy Director in Civil Service cum Foreign Service academy in Shahbagh in 1992, Nazrul Islam retired from foreign office. Actually, President Ershad had merged Foreign Service Academy with Civil Service Academy because of his personal grudge against then Principal of the Foreign Service Academy.

I decided to invite Ambassador Nazrul Islam for a talk on foreign policy for the benefit of the newly recruited foreign service officers. Nazrul Islam accepted my invitation and the officers who attended had appreciated his style of discussions. There was an evaluation system of guest lecturers by the newly recruited officers in the academy. This was strictly followed during the administration of Dr. Sadat Hossain, Director –General of Academy who retired as Chairman, Public Service Commission of Bangladesh.

While at the academy, I organized a seminar on climate change for the benefit of newly recruited foreign service officers in consultation with Dr. Fazlul Hasan Yusuf, Diector-Gerneral of the Academy who incidentally worked in Foreign Ministry at initial stage of the Ministry. Professor M. Aminul Islam of Geography Department of Dacca University presented the key note paper while Professor Dr. Ainun Nishat of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology and Dr. Atiq Rahman, Director, Bangladesh center for advanced studies were the discussants. Ambassador Nazrul Islam, former Foreign Secretary, presided.

While serving as Director in Europe desk in 1994 Ambassador Nazrul Islam used to drop in my office to have a chit chat over a cup of tea. Possibly in his mind he was thinking of serving as the country’s foreign minister which may have prompted him to join the Bangladesh Nationalist Party like Ambassador Rezaul Karim. Nazrul Islam had been maintaining a close liaison with his constituency when he was the foreign secretary. Similarly, Ambassador Rezaul Karim also maintained close touch with his Kushtia District after retirement.

Unfortunately, neither Ambassador Rezaul Karim, nor Ambassador Nazrul Islam succeeded in getting nominations from the BNP to contest election. Ambassador Nazrul Islam expired on 23 April of 1999. Although some of his colleagues in the Ministry called him an eccentric but he was humane and in fact was a humorous person. May Allah bless him in heaven.