Why Osman Hadi gets resting place beside Bangladesh national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam

Almost 50 years after rebel Bangla poet Kazi Nazrul Islam was laid to rest near the Dhaka University mosque in 1976, Inquilab Mancha leader Sharif Osman Hadi, who succumbed to an assassin's bullets, was buried beside the Bangladesh national poet. Dhaka turned into a sea of people on Saturday. Lakhs flooded the streets, thousands arrived from nearby towns and cities, and the capital brimmed for Hadi's burial.

For many, the news feels surreal. Hadi is lying beside the "Bidrohi Kobi". But, many in Bangladesh have tried to draw the obvious parallel. As Nazrul's lines became Hadi's ammunition, as seen in the viral Reels and Shorts, the slain radical and anti-Sheikh Hasina leader has also been elevated to the status of a "biplobi" by the students' leaders of the "new Bangladesh".

"I am the storm, the whirlwind. I am the indomitable Rudra, the restless sound. The sky bursts with the laughter of thunder, the sky floats at my touch. I come as a flood, pulling the waves to my chest. I uproot trees, break roofs, play all kinds of games of fear. I am the whirlwind, breathing fire, the dance of death floats in the water. People tremble, towns tremble, dust falls at my feet," Hadi read these lines of Nazrul at rallies.