Chitta Ranjan Dutta, a legendary Bangladeshi war veteran, died on Tuesday at the age of 93, according to media reports. A sector commander during the Bangladesh Liberation war, Dutta died in the US state of Florida, the Dhaka Tribune reported. “A sector commander in the Bangladesh Liberation War CR Dutta breathed his last around 9:30 am on Tuesday (Bangladeshi time). He was a war veteran,” the report said.
Born on January 1, 1927 in Shillong, the then capital of Assam in British India, Dutta's ancestral home was in erstwhile Sylhet, presently in Chunarughat upazila of Habiganj district in Bangladesh. In 1947, Dutta joined the Pakistan Army from the last unified batch of the Indian Military Academy where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.
During the Liberation War in 1971, Dutta became the commander of Sector 4, which covered the whole of the present Sylhet division and some of adjoining areas. “After the Independence he served as the armed forces commander in Rangpur. In 1973, he became the first director general of the Bangladesh Rifles (now renamed as Border Guard Bangladesh),” the report said.
Dutta, who was also a prominent minority rights advocate in Bangladesh after his retirement from service, was the president of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.
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