Blast Past Syed Mahmud Ali is a fastidious dresser, a proper old-style English gent in some ways. 'He likes three-piece suits with braces,' recalls a former colleague.' ''Only your bowler hat is missing,' we would tell him.' In the last few days, he has been 'on leave' from Bush House, the BBC's imposing World Service headquarters in the Aldwych, London, after his removal as head of the Bengali service. His sin was to give an indiscreet interview to a Bangladeshi newspaper in which he called Sheikh Hasina, the country's Prime Minister, a liar. It is being said that he got more than a little carried away during the interview. He is reported to have bragged that he himself arrested Bangladesh's first Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed on the orders of Khondokar Moshtaq, who had installed himself as President after soldiers loyal to him killed Mujib. BBC bosses decided that this was not the sort of behaviour expected of a head of department. Although he will not return to the Bengali department, the management is sympathetically considering his request to be found another job within World Service. He is a supposed to be a dab hand at administration. Judging by the amount of dirt that has been dished out on Mahmud Ali, it is a surprise that the BBC is being so accommodating. Indeed, the real question is not why he was removed as head of Bengali but why a man with his record was given such a key job in the first place. There are mutterings that he was a sort of bosses' nark but this is not backed up by evidence. The BBC says Mahmud Ali was appointed to be head of Bengali despite his military background which was known to his superiors. Really? Did they know that as an army captain he had been at Dhaka Radio Station when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family were killed on August 15, 1975? If the BBC did know, it seems astounding that Mahmud Ali was appointed to head Bengali, leap-frogging several other qualified candidates in the process. And if the BBC did not, why is it that he is being promised another job? At a personal level, there is little criticism of the 5'1' former Pakistan army officer who fought against India. 'Very nice, charming', 'easy to talk to' and 'knows etiquette' are opinions offered by those who know him. In any group of colleagues, there are bound to be jealousies. 'Not that popular' and 'shrewd' are about the most serious comments made against him. Academically, there is little doubt he has intellectual pretensions. 'I only read serious books,' he would say. 'I don't read fiction.' The 10 or so people in the BBC's Bengali section, a mixture of Bengalis from Bangladesh and from West Bengal, are close in the way only Bengalis can be. The distinction between professional and social life becomes blurred. After hours, the BBC club in the basement of Bush House provides a relaxing atmosphere for staff. Men with a roving eye can always amuse themselves by making a pass at English secretaries in short skirts. 'No, he is not that way,' remarks one source. 'He loves his wife and children.' Mahmud Ali does appear to be devoted to his wife, Salina, who was previously married to another army officer. He and his wife do not have any children of their own but, from all account, he has been a good father to Sunera and Adil, a daughter and a son from Salina's first marriage. Sunera's recent wedding in Dhaka was a cause for a family celebration. From his teenage years, Mahmud Ali was cut out to be different. Now in his early fifties, he was one of 10 youths picked out from a large pool to be army cadets. The training took place in Chittagong. After the war of liberation, he made a smooth transition from the Pakistan to the Bangladesh army, and served under two generals, Zia-ur Rahman and Ershad. He stood down with the rank of major, dabbled briefly with two English language newspapers - his English is judged to be better than his less than perfect Bengali - and finally secured a modest army scholarship to travel to King's College, London to do first an MA and then a PhD in War Studies. Later, he even wrote a book on insurgency in south Asia. When the scholarship money was stopped, his wife spoke to the Bengali service at the BBC and managed to get her husband a little freelance work. Having got his foot in the door, Mahmud Ali proved adept at being taken on as a producer, impressed Peter Mangold, the head of the service, edged out possible rivals and was eventually given charge of the Bengali service. Since the Bengali service has a daily audience of over seven million in Bangladesh - it is relayed on Radio Bangladesh's FM transmitter - the BBC has become a player in the domestic politics of the country. The government's control of the media gives the BBC's Bengali service an exaggerated importance in Bangladesh, especially in the run-up to June's election. There is no evidence that Mahmud Ali was anti-Awami League or that he had got into bed with the opposition BNP. The important aspects of his army career can be picked out from the interview he gave in London to Masuda Bhatty, a freelance Bangladeshi journalist in London. People are puzzled as to why Mamhud Ali revealed so much damaging information about himself. The probable explanation is he did not think of the consequences. Masuda Bhatty went through the BBC press office to secure her interview with Mahmud Ali. Initially, the interview was intended for Pratham Alo, a paper in Bangladesh whose editor is said to be friendly with Mahmud Ali. But when Pratham Alo sat on the interview, Masuda offered it to a rival publication, Janakantha, which published the piece on February 21. It seems Sheikh Hasina has nursed a deep grievance against Mahmud Ali, with whom she cancelled a interview during her London visit in 1999. Among Bangladeshis conspiracy theories abound. According to one, Sheikh Hasina was outraged because Mahmud Ali had asked a correspondent in India to investigate documents questioning the parentage of Sheikh Mujib's father. In London, the Bangladeshi High Commissioner met Greg Dyke, the BBC's director general, and asked for Mahmud Ali's head on a platter. After a 'comprehensive internal inquiry' under Elizabeth Wright, head of Asia and Pacific, it was deemed that Mahmud Ali's 'conduct during the interview amounted to a failure of editorial judgment that compromises effective stewardship of the Bengali section'. It was also felt that 'his comments in the interview were not those expected of a section head of a BBC World Service language section'. The BBC might have been indebted to Ali because he pulled off a huge coup by getting the service several hours on the Dhaka FM channel on Radio Bangladesh. But when the Bangladesh deputy foreign minister Abul Hasan Chowdhury made some noises to the British government that BBC might lose the contract, Bush House quickly went in to damage control mode. There was a time when BBC was reluctant to put non-whites in charge of departments at BBC World Service. Although the BBC now claims it instituted disciplinary procedures without any pressure from the Bangladesh government, it is clear that Mahmud Ali has caused severe embarrassment to his employers. With the Bangladesh government now saying that they want Ali's extradition so that he can be put on trial, a few more episodes seem likely in this soap opera. Why the BBC made an ex-Pakistan and ex-Bangladesh military man head of its Bengali service is one story unlikely to feature on the Bengali service.