A jeep that carries memories of Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman. Photo: BSS

BRAHMANBARIA, Sept 3, 2026 (BSS)- Nearly five decades after it was used by Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman an old jeep stands preserved inside the Ashuganj Fertilizer and Chemical Industries Corporation premises, carrying his memories.

The jeep Dhaka Metro-TA 9133 was used by Shaheed Ziaur Rahman while visiting Sonaramapur in Ashuganj upazila to inspect the canal excavation programme carried out between 1977 and 1979.

Wrinkled by time it’s now more than an aging vehicle for those working at the factory, but its engine still is operational.

For locals and factory employees, it is a tangible reminder of a period when Bangladesh was seeking to expand agricultural production, strengthen irrigation and water management, and increase domestic fertilizer production.

The epoch making canal excavation programme was undertaken by President Ziaur Rahman aimed at improving water management and supporting agriculture. 

His visit to Ashuganj also brought him to the fertilizer factory, one of the country’s major industrial establishments developed to meet country’s growing demand for fertilizer.

Decades later, the battered jeep quietly remains inside the factory compound, linking those agricultural and industrial initiatives with a physical object that survived with the passage of time.

For driver Alamgir Miah the vehicle represents something even more personal as his father, Mohammad Jahangir Miah drove the jeep for 26 years. Alamgir himself has been behind its wheel for the past 22 years.

“After all these years, the car is still kept with care as a memory of President Ziaur Rahman,” Alamgir said, adding its engine remains functional.

Driven by two generations the vehicle has a rare human dimension. Its operation began as a working vehicle and gradually turned into an emotional object of a family and significant chapter of country’s political history.

Abu Kawsar, general secretary of Ashuganj Fertilizer Factory Workers and Employees Union, described the jeep as a witness to history.

Although the vehicle has become dilapidated over the years, its engine is still in working condition and it continues to be preserved on the factory premises, he said.

Mohammad Tajul Islam Bhuiyan, deputy general manager (admin) of Ashuganj Fertilizer and Chemical Industries, said Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman travelled in the jeep while visiting the canal excavation work at Sonaramapur.

According to him, several foreign ambassadors and other members of the president’s entourage also travelled in the vehicle during the visit.

Factory officials said the jeep’s significance lies not simply in its age but in the events with which it is associated. It recalls a period when canal excavation, agricultural expansion and the development of the fertilizer industry were closely linked to efforts to boost food production and rural infrastructure.

For younger generations, the jeep could therefore serve as an unusual historical exhibit- one that allows a chapter of Bangladesh’s development history to be viewed not through documents alone, but through an object that actually moved through the landscape where those initiatives were carried out.

With proper preservation, the nearly half-century-old jeep could potentially be preserved as a small but evocative piece of Bangladesh’s industrial and agricultural heritage.

And for Alamgir Miah the old jeep remains something more intimate- a vehicle carrying not only a historical memory, but also a family story handed down from one generation to the next.