Hansel Mehta’s gripping movie ‘Faraaz’ has been making the rounds on Netflix lately, bringing back memories of the devastating 2016 Dhaka terrorist attack. Breaking off from the movie itself, one is left with the question, who was Faraaz Hossain and what was the reality of his life, beyond its depiction in the Netflix movie?
The grandson of Latifur Rahman, the chairman of the Transcom Group and Shahnaz Rahman, Faraaz was the younger son of Simeen Rahman and Muhammed Waquer Bin Hossain, born in April, 1996. He began his schooling at the age of 3 at the Sir John Wilson School, in Dhaka before moving on to the American International School in Dhaka after class 2. After his graduation Faraaz pursued his higher education at Emory University, Atlanta, USA. He was then accepted to the Goizueta Business School, a subsidiary of Emory University.
Faraaz was in Dhaka on holiday in 2016 when he, amongst others was taken hostage by 5 young men. The hostage situation is seen unfolding in the Netflix movie and gives us some sense of his predicament barring the obvious liberties taken to make the story screen worthy.
The 2016 hostage crisis was not the end of Faraaz’s story though as he was given the Mother Teresa Memorial International Award posthumously in 2016. This was in recognition of the fact that despite him not being the target of the terrorists being a Muslim, he refused to leave his 2 friends in the lurch. An act of bravery for which he lost his life. The Garden of the Righteous in Tunisia honored him by planting a tree in his name in 2016 and PepsiCo also decided to initiate the Faraaz Hossain Courage Award from 2016 to keep his incredible legacy alive.