Captain Fazlur Rahman Chowdhury (1N) has breathed his last
Our all-respected guardian mariner Capt. FR Chowdhury Sir at his final voyage
Captain Fazlur Rahman Chowdhury (1N) Sir died after a massive heart attack in a hospital in Turkiye on 15 Oct. 2022
ইন্নালিল্লাহি ওয়া ইন্না ইলাইহি রাজিউন / Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un (We belong to Allah and to Him shall we return)
May Allah bless him with Jannatul Ferdaus.
He, along with his wife were in a vacation near Antalya, Southern Turkey. They were supposed to return home on 17 Oct 2022. His son Zahid Latif will travel to Turkiye and make arrangements for transporting Captain Fazlur Rahman’s body to London for burial.
Fazlur sir was the 1st batch Ex-Cadet of Bangladesh Marine Academy. He had been living in London with his wife for many years. He was the Ex-Commandant of Bangladesh Marine Academy and also the Ex-Director General of Dept. of Shipping, Bangladesh. He migrated to the UK many years back and joined the British Government (MCA). He was the Deputy Chief Examiner of MCA and the Administrator of Gibraltar Maritime Administration. He was outspoken and thought-provoking writer as well and certainly a true patriot. He also worked for the UN as consultant a few years back. He was the guardian and well-respected mentor for strong and highly capable Bangladeshi Mariners community in the UK and all over the world. We have lost a father figure for our community.
FIRST Banglar Kakoli Team (Master – Capt F R Chy) at Shimonoseki Port Japan during taking over on 12 Dec 1979.
Image while joining Academy in 1962.
About Fazlur R Chowdhury in Brief:
Fazlur Rahman Chowdhury was born in January, 1945 in the home of his Nana (maternal grand-father) Khan Bahadur Mohammed Mahmud, Sitara-e-Pakistan at Bhadeswar, Sylhet. Fazlu’s father Haji Abdul Latif Chowdhury, Tamgha-e-Khidmat was an Inspector of Police and later a Member of the Comilla District Council. Fazlur passed SSC from Comilla Zilla School in 1959 and HSC from Faujdarhat Cadet College in 1961.
Fazlur was one of the few young men with which Juldia Marine Academy started functioning in 1962. In 1963, he joined the Pan-Islamic S.S. Co. Ltd. as a Deck Cadet. He passed Second Mate’s and Chief Mate’s examinations from Karachi, Pakistan. He was Chief Officer of the passenger-pilgrim ship “Safina-e-Arab” when the liberation struggle started. He eventually left the ship in September, 1970.
Immediately after liberation of Bangladesh, Fazlur volunteered his services to the Chittagong Port Authority and engaged himself in emergency work to clear the channel for ships to navigate. Initially he was working with Captain K. Mehbub (a Pakistani gentleman who offered great services to Bangladesh) for removing the partially sunk vessels from the channel and later he worked as a co-ordinator with Russian Salvage Team. He was the first person to reach Norwegian tanker “Sarita” far away from the anchorage with a group of coastal tankers to off-load the oil cargo for Bangladesh. After rendering very valuable service to CPA for more than a year during which period he also trained new marine pilots for safe operation of the port, Fazlur left CPA to join newly created BSC.
Fazlur obtained Class-1 Master Mariner from the UK in 1976 and M.Sc. from World Maritime University, Malmo, Sweden in 1988. Apart from commanding the only passenger-pilgrim ship he also took delivery of the first newly built ship for BSC from Japan.
He was Commandant of the Marine Academy for a short period in 1977. He later joined as the Chief Nautical Surveyor of the Department of Transport and for a short period was the Director-General of Shipping, Government of Bangladesh as well. He was also a Commander in Bangladesh Naval Reserve and saw some active service in the Navy including command of an auxiliary vessel.
In 1991, he joined the Marine Division of the Department of Transport, UK (later becoming Maritime & Coastguard Agency) as a Surveyor and Examiner. He worked with UK-MCA until the end of 1999 when he left as its Deputy Chief Examiner to join as Maritime Administrator in Gibraltar. After working in Gibraltar for four years, he joined the Bahamas Maritime Authority as its Deputy Director. After another four years, he joined the Kingdom of Bahrain as Maritime Advisor. His last assignment before retirement was a short period as Maritime Advisor on a World Bank Project in Tonga.
He was an avid writer of political essays published in various magazines and periodicals. To his credit, a compilation of his work was published under the title “Bangladesh: My dream” in 2018. [Please click to get access to the book]
During his long career he has contributed to the community and to the industry in many ways. He has written many articles, his 70 Articles related to our community and industry posted in the BD Mariners website at ” FR Chowdhury ” Category. Please click the below link to get access to those articles.
FR Chowdhury | Bangladeshi Mariners (bdmariners.org)
Courtesy: Sajid Hussain (15E), Bangladesh Marine Academy / Zillur Rahman (25E) / Wasiur Rouf (35E)
May your soul rest in Peace, old friend.
He called be from Turkey on 12 Oct 2022 in the evening and we had video chat for almost an hour. He was looking good and, last night at about 23 Hours, the saddest message came to Capt Khairul Anam and we are devasted to read the contents. It was beyond our all imaginations. Capt Anam is visiting me and broke into tears while giving me the message. I knew not how to console him when I was in the same situation. Pain of losing a close friend at this age, I never knew, could be so deep.
May Allah bless us all and may Capt Chowdhury’s departed soul rest in peace.