বাংলা 
English 
Kumarkhali thana, the oldest thana of Kushtia district, now has an area of 328.94 square kilometres. To its west lies Kushtia Sadar thana, to the east Khoksa thana, to the south Shailkupa thana of Jhenaidah, and to the north the Padma river and Pabna district.
The Gorai river enters Kumarkhali from Kushtia Sadar in the west of the thana and flows straight through its middle, entering Khoksa in the east. As a result the thana is divided into two parts, north and south. To the north of the Gorai lie five unions — Sadaki, Nandlalpur, Koya, Jagannathpur and Shilaidaha.
Jadubayra, Chapra, Bagulat, Panti and Chadpur — these five unions lie to the south. Because of the erosion of the Padma, a large part of the thana in the north is joined with the main landmass of Pabna, where a new union named Char Sadipur union has been formed. Besides, on the northern bank of the Gorai stands the Kumarkhali pourashava (municipality), established in 1869 and one of the oldest pourashavas of Bangladesh. This thana played a glorious role in the Liberation War.
Kumarkhali in various movements during the Pakistan era –
In the first general election of Pakistan in 1954, NAP leader of the United Front Syed Altaf Hossain contested against the Muslim League candidate Shah Azizur Rahman. To ensure victory, Maulana Bhasani held election rallies at the J.N. High School field in Kumarkhali and at Panti. Syed Altaf Hossain won the election by a huge margin of votes. The committee of the Awami Muslim League, formed with the progressive section of the Muslim League, was formed in Kumarkhali in 1957, with Afazuddin as secretary. Through their initiative and efforts, committees were formed in every union as well.
Although the coming to power of the military government in 1958 brought some stagnation to the political field, students at this time built various movements. In 1962, M.S. Ali [Nandlalpur] was elected a member of the provincial assembly by the votes of the basic democrats. The Kumarkhali student society made the first protest against military restrictions in 1962 and strove to build a movement against the annulment of the Education Commission report. At that time, under the leadership of Nur Alam Ziku [Durgapur, Kumarkhali], the pioneer of the movement at Kushtia Government College, M.A. Bari, Mojidur Rahman, Abu Hanif, Tofayel Tofazzel Hossain, A.S.M. Wahed Panna, Kazi Akhtar, Rezaul Karim Hannan and other prominent students carried out programmes demanding the annulment of the report, along with student processions and meetings.
Like the rest of the country, a successful hartal was observed in Kumarkhali on 17 September. As there was no college in Kumarkhali yet, students went on to Kushtia College after passing. So all decisions of Kushtia came to be observed in Kumarkhali too. On 8 May 1963, Section 144 was imposed in Kushtia and a mass crackdown began on the leaders, activists and students involved in the movement. Many then came to Kumarkhali and endeavoured to build the movement here. With only 11 students, the first college in Kumarkhali thana was founded in 1965. From the very beginning its students became involved in the constitutional movement.
Although the Awami League in Kumarkhali had committees only at union level, the Muslim League remained a strong organisation. Even so, anti-government movements ran through the sixties. Centring on the Six Point programme of 1966, Awami leaders such as Golam Kibria, Nur Alam Ziku, A. Majid and A. Aziz Khan, along with the leaders of various unions, tried to build public opinion on the Six Points at the centre of the thana.
At that time the Awami leaders and activists kept explaining the Six Points through various leaflets and booklets, and people like Maulana Tofazzel Hossain, a chief of the Muslim League, and Gyanendranath Basu [Jonen Bose] joined the Awami League and made the movement even stronger. In 1969 the students raised an 11-point demand.
M.A. Bari, senior vice president of the Chhatra League of Iqbal Hall of Dhaka University, used to give necessary direction to the Kumarkhali student movement through regular contact. In Kumarkhali, with Rezaul Karim Hannan as convener and with A.S.M. Wahed Panna, Nandadulal Biswas, Manju Sattar, Gani, Tunu, Bari Khan and others as members, the All-Party Students' Struggle Council was formed.
Among the girls involved were Sufia Begum, Rowshan Ara Nila, Jhorna, Rubi and others. At this time the students of the Islamic Chhatra Sangh, supporters of the Muslim League, tried to resist the students. On 19 February 1969, when firing began indiscriminately at a procession in Kushtia, Abdur Razzak was killed, and Satya Ghosh of Kumarkhali, a student of Kushtia College, together with several student leaders, was shot and wounded. Many others were also seriously injured.
This incident invigorated the movement, and intense excitement spread through Kumarkhali. Under the leadership of Golam Kibria in Kumarkhali, Montu Doctor in Shilaidaha, Barun Master in Mohendrapur, Ayub Chairman in Nandlalpur, Waj Chairman in Sadki, Azahar Biswas and Abed Master in Jadubayra, Abdul Jalil Molla, Maulana Tofazzel Hossain and A. Razzak Mia in Panti, and Abdul Chairman in Chadpur, the movement continued everywhere in the thana. Thus the simultaneous movement of students and political leaders and activists together with people of every level created an unstoppable mass movement, which took the form of a mass uprising.
In the 1970 election to the provincial assembly, in the Kumarkhali-Khoksa constituency, the Awami League candidate was Golam Kibria, and his rival was Afil Uddin of the Muslim League. At that time, because of the people's absence from and non-cooperation with the Muslim League, it failed to hold public meetings at every place in the thana and became cut off from the people even before the election. In the election on 17 December, Golam Kibria defeated Afil Uddin by a huge margin of votes. Earlier, on 7 December, he had been elected a member of the National Assembly by defeating barrister Amir-ul Islam Shah Ahmed [charged under the Collaborators Act].
Kumarkhali in the non-cooperation movement -
On 28 February 1971, as soon as the session of the National Assembly was declared postponed indefinitely, protest demonstrations began in Kumarkhali as in the rest of the country. On 1 March Kumarkhali turned, as it were, into a city of processions. The previously formed "All-Party Students' Struggle Council" and "Independent Bengal Students' Struggle Council" were re-established. A committee was announced with A.S.M. Wahed Panna as coordinator and Rezaul Karim Hannan as convener. The notable members were Nandgopal, Parimal, Manju Sattar, Mofazzel, Makbul, Rafik, Jhontu, Alam, Tunu, Ruhul and others, and among the female members Sufia Begum, Rowshan Ara, Rubi, Jhorna and others.
Although contact with Dhaka became difficult because of the censorship imposed on the newspapers, the movement was conducted successfully through the efforts of Golam Kibria, Nur Alam Ziku, A. Aziz Khan and A. Majid by maintaining constant communication with Kushtia. In protest against the killings in Dhaka, the non-cooperation movement was observed spontaneously in Kushtia at Bangabandhu's call.
After the Race Course speech of 7 March 1971, with the help of Nur Alam Ziku of Kumarkhali and many others along with the leaders, activists and Volunteer Corps of Kushtia, arms training for the students secretly continued at Milpara with the help of Ansar and police weapons, and arms training for the girl students at Ram Babu's house.
On 3 March 1971 the student leaders M.A. Bari, Shamsul Alam Dudu, Jahed Rumi, Mostafa Azad, Jahid Hossain Jafor and others brought the flag of independent Bangladesh to Kushtia for the first time from Dhaka and held a planning meeting. On 23 March, the Republic Day of Pakistan, the flag of independent Bangladesh was hoisted at Panti and in Kumarkhali.
Aynul Darji and Moslem Darji made flags in Kumarkhali, and Rezaul Karim Hannan drew the yellow map of Bangladesh. In the morning at Ganamore in Kumarkhali, amid a gathering of people, with leaders such as Golam Kibria, Abdul Majid and Abdul Aziz Khan and student leaders such as A.S.M. Wahed Panna, Nandgopal and Parimal, Rezaul Karim Hannan, convener of the Independent Bengal Students' Struggle Council, hoisted the flag of Bangladesh.
On the other hand, at Panti the flag brought from Dhaka was hoisted by M.A. Bari in front of Panti School in the presence of Maulana Tofazzel Hossain, Abdul Jalil Molla, A. Razzak Mia, Jahid Hossain Jafor, Badsha Mia and others.
