Dhaka, Aug. 21 -- August has always been the rueful and elegiac month for the Bengali nation, as Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and almost all his family members were brutally assassinated on August 15 in 1975. Apart from the Bangabandhu family, a true hero also sacrificed his life on that day as the only one who acted on their leader's call to try and save him. The only one, who despite impossible odds, answered the call of duty. The one man whose story, on a day for jackals, offers the nation some redemption. He is of course none other than Shaheed Brigadier General (posthumous) Jamil Uddin Ahmad, 'Bir Uttam', or as he is immortalised in the hearts and minds of Bangladeshis, Colonel Jamil.

The young, handsome Colonel Jamil was a ris...