When he wrote his last letter from prison, Mushtaq Ahmed was worried about the health of his wife Lipa Akhter. She had suffered a mental breakdown and had been hospitalised, reportedly because of her inability to obtain bail for her husband.
Whatever the charge they may bring against us, always remember the poem of Mahadev Saha, Mushtaq Ahmed wrote to her.
“Can they charge a cuckoo with sedition if it calls someone’s name?
Can a lily be on trial if it’s petal drops on a forbidden person’s grave?
Can they prosecute the sky for shading that tomb?
In the end, what does it matter, if they question the patriotism of the sky?”
In May 2020, Mushtaq Ahmed had been detained along with political cartoonist Ahmed Kishore Kabir and two others for allegedly spreading rumors about the Bangladesh government’s response to the Covid 19 pandemic.
Since Ahmed’s arrest on May 4 under the dreaded Digital Security Act, Akhter had fought a lonely battle.
Ahmed was always a maverick. He…