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Published : 21 Jul 2025, 10:00 PM
Flight Lieutenant Towkir Islam, the pilot of the Bangladesh Air Force fighter jet that crashed in Dhaka, had married just a year ago. His wife is a lecturer at the capital’s BRAC University.
On Monday afternoon, relatives revealed this information to reporters when they visited his family home in Sector 3 of Rajshahi’s Uposhohor area.
Towkir Islam Sagar’s ancestral home is in Chapainawabganj’s Kansat. His family, however, lives in a rented flat at a multi-storey building named “Ashroy” in Uposhohor’s Sapura.
There live his father Taherul Islam, mother Saleha Khatun, sister Srishti, and brother-in-law.
Towkir studied up to Grade 7 at Rajshahi Government Laboratory High School before enrolling at Pabna Cadet College.
A Bangladesh Air Force training aircraft crashed into a 2-storey building of Milestone School and College in Dhaka’s Diabari earlier in the day, killing the pilot and 18 others and leaving 164 people injured.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), an F-7 BGI fighter jet took off from the Bangladesh Air Force Base Bir Uttam AK Khandker in Kurmitola at 1:06pm as part of a routine training exercise. The aircraft, shortly after takeoff, experienced a mechanical malfunction.
Flight Lieutenant Towkir made “every effort” to steer the jet away from a densely populated areas toward a more sparsely inhabited location to avoid a major disaster, the agency said.
The Air Force has formed a high-level probe committee to determine the cause of the accident, it added.
As soon as the news of the crash reached Rajshahi, Towkir’s relatives began gathering at the family home. Soon afterwards, journalists also arrived there.
The owner of the house, Atikul Islam, told journalists: “Towkir Islam Sagar’s family members were happy and excited to hear that he would be flying a training aircraft alone for the first time. “Later in the afternoon, they got news of the crash. At that time, they learned that Sagar was under treatment at the CMH in Dhaka.”
He said that when the family members expressed a desire to visit Sagar in the hospital, the Air Force arranged a helicopter for them. Around 4:30pm, they were taken to Rajshahi Shah Makhdum Airport and then flown to Dhaka.
Towkir’s parents, sister, and brother-in-law left for Dhaka believing he was alive and under treatment, he added.
