ASHK Sadek

Sadek was born on 30 April 1934 to a Bengali Muslim family in the village of Barenga in Keshabpur, Jessore district. His father, Yahya Sadeq, was the joint commissioner of the Government of Bengal. His younger sister, Begum Rahat, was the wife of politician Anwarul Hossain Khan Chowdhury.[4]

Sadek completed his matriculation in 1949 and his intermediate in 1951. In 1954, he completed his Bachelor of Arts (honours) in economics and received his Master of Arts from the University of Calcutta in 1955. He then moved to the United Kingdom where he studied economics and political science at the Queens' College of the University of Cambridge in 1959. He also completed studies of economics from Williams College in Massachusetts, United States.[5]

Sadek joined the civil service of Pakistan in 1956.[3] From 1959 to 1961, he served as the sub-divisional officer of Nilphamari and Narayanganj. He worked as the Comilla deputy commissioner from 1966 to 1967 and the secretary to the Governor of East Pakistan from 1969 to 1970. He was the secretary to Tajuddin Ahmad, the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh and later chief secretary to the President of Bangladesh. He was a secretary of a number of ministries and retired from government service in 1988. In 1996 he was elected to the national parliament from Jessore-6 and again in 2001. He was a Minister of Education in the cabinet of Sheikh Hasina.[3]

Sadek died on 9 September 2007.[3] His wife, Ismat Ara Sadek, was a state minister of Sheikh Hasina's government.[6]ASHK Sadek auditorium in Keshabpur is named after him.[7]