Zafar Iqbal says he feels pity, not anger, for attacker

Professor Muhammed Zafar Iqbal said he feels pity and not anger for the attacker, a radicalised young man who stabbed him during an event in Shahjalal University of Science and Technology or SUST in Sylhet.

Prof Iqbal was speaking to reporters at the airport while heading to Sylhet after a treatment of 12 days in the Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka.

“I am not angry but really feel sad for them. The world is such a beautiful place and you can perform many good deeds. But I feel sad they chose such a wrong aim in life,” he said regarding the attacker and radicalised young men like him.

The teacher said Bangladesh has to provide a necessary environment that young men do not go astray and can lead a normal, healthy life.

During an interrogation by the Rapid Action Battalion or RAB, Faizul Hassan alias Shafiqur, the attacker, said he made an attempt to kill Prof Iqbal branding him as an ‘enemy of Islam’.

Professor Iqbal was operated at MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital in Sylhet and later shifted to the CMH in Dhaka.

Prof Iqbal told journalists that he was physically better. He said he had four head injuries and was wearing a cap to cover them.

“The stiches are removed now and the doctor has asked me to take rest,” he said adding other stiches on his hands and back will be removed later.

He expressed his gratitude to everyone who assisted him after the attack and to the doctors who treated him.

He said he was happy to be back.

“I am a professor in a university and also a juvenile fiction writer, am I not? But our prime minister arranged a helicopter for me and came to meet me in person despite being busy.”

“How can I express myself? I convey my gratitude to her, to the doctors and to the people of the country,” he said.

Prof Iqbal went to the open stage, where he was attacked, to meet his students after he returned to Sylhet.

“It may be foolish of me, but that’s why I never get scared. I wasn’t scared at the time of the attack either, nor am I now. I still feel safe.” Prof Iqbal went on to say: “I draw a sense of safety from the people I know: my students and countrymen.”

He also said he does not believe the attack was against the progressive force in Bangladesh.

“We have a beautiful country. If you love the country, it will reciprocate,” he said to the people of the new generation.

Prof Iqbal was accompanied by his wife Yasmeen Haque and their daughter Yeshim Iqbal at the airport.