Freedom fighter Shib Narayan Das, Bangladesh’s first national flag designer and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal-JASD leader had passed away. 

He breathed his last while undergoing treatment at a Dhaka hospital on Friday (April 19) morning at age 78.

According to Das’s family, he died at 9:25 am at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University in the capital.

Arnab Aditya Das son of the late brave Freedom fighter confirmed the matter.

Shib Narayan was born in Cumilla and his father was Satish Chandra Das who was captured and killed by the Pakistani army during the liberation war in 1971. Shib Narayan is now survived by his wife Gitashree Chowdhury and their son Arnab Das.

He was an activist and leader of Chhatra League. On June 7, 1970, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was scheduled to take part in a student parade held at Paltan Maidan in Dhaka. For this purpose, a squad of students was formed named as 'February-15 Force'. The student leaders decided to create a flag of this force.

On June 6, 1970, with this aim the then Chhatra League leaders ASM Abdur Rab, Shahjahan Siraj, Kazi Aref Ahmed and Marshal Monirul Islam sat in the room No-108 of Sergeant Zahurul Haque Hall of Dhaka University to discuss the flag plan.

At the end of the discussion based on the initial proposal of Kazi Aref, it was decided to make a flag with a yellow map of Bengal in the middle of the red sun on the green ground. Kamrul Alam Khan then stitched a red circle in the middle of a large piece of green cloth from a Bihari tailor's shop in Dhaka's New Market.

BDST: 1434 HRS, April 19, 2024
MSK