M. A. G. Osmani
Commander in Chief of Bangladesh Army (1918–1984)
Muhammad Ataul Gani Osmani (1 September 1918 – 16 February 1984) was a Bangladeshi military officer, revolutionary and politician. His military career spanned three decades, beginning with his service in the British Indian Army in 1939. He fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II, and after the partition of India in 1947, he joined the Pakistan Army and served in the East Bengal Regiment, retiring as a colonel in 1967. Osmani joined the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in 1971 as the commander-in-chief of the nascent Bangladesh Forces. Regarded as the founder of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, Osmani retired as a four star general from the Bangladesh Army in 1972.
Osmani entered politics in independent Bangladesh, serving as a member of parliament and cabinet minister in the government of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Along with Mainul Hosein, he resigned from parliament in opposition to the creation of the one party state of BAKSAL. He advised the government on restoring the chain of command in the military after the 15 August coup. He contested the 1978 Bangladeshi presidential election against Ziaur Rahman. Osmani died in London in 1984 and was buried in his hometown Sylhet.
Early life
Osmani was born into a Bengali Muslim landowning family in Sunamganj, Assam Province, British India, on 1 September 1918.
The public source identifies “M. A. G. Osmani” as commander in Chief of Bangladesh Army (1918–1984). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Osmani, Commander and Chief.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q140085. VIAF identifies the subject as 18680522. The Library of Congress control number is n85338928. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 1984, 1939 and 1947.
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This entry incorporates text from “M. A. G. Osmani” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.