Bangladeshi folk singer Momtaz marries again

Submitted by priyodesk on Thu, 22/09/2011 - 2:54pm

Ruling party lawmaker and once popular female folk singer of Bangladesh, Momtaz Begum, who is popularly known as Momtaz officially declared marrying her long-time boyfriend Moinuddin Hassan Chanchal, who is a physician at the eye hospital founded by the singer at her ancestral district.

Momtaz She is also known as The Music Queen, popular for her unconventional use of music lyrics. During her international career spanning two decades, she has recorded around 300 albums, both solo and duet. She is the only Bengali singer in the Indian sub-continent with such large number of albums. Momtaz's name has been proposed for inclusion in the Guinea's World Book of Records. Momtaz Begum was selected as Member of Parliament by the ruling Bangladesh Awami League in the reserve seats of the women in 2009. Criticizing the nomination of Momtaz Begum, local leaders of Awami League in Manikganj district said, the singer was maintaining closer links with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, when it was in power.

At the age of 14, Momtaz Begum married her guru and lover Abdur Rashid Sorkar, who is a folk singer and lyricist. Few years later, Sorkar divorced Momtaz over the scandal of her extra-marital affairs with a local man named Romzan Ali. Being divorced, Momtaz married Romzan Ali, whom she divorced in 2008, when he was arrested by the military backed interim regime. Since then Momtaz Begum has been dating with Moinuddin Hassan Chanchal. Parents of Chanchal are physicians working in a hospital in the southern part of Bangladesh. Earlier Moinuddin Hassan Chanchal married his classmate at Bazitpur Medical College in 1996. Two years later, the marriage broke.

In 2006 Momtaz Begum produced a full length feature film named 'Momtaz' which was one of the biggest flops in Bangladeshi film industry. Some of the songs of Momtaz Begum had also been accused of containing vulgarity. Since joining politics, Momtaz Begum started losing her position as most favourite folk singer in Bangladesh. For past two and half years, all of her audio albums failed to even attain minimum attention of the audiences.

Momtaz Begum was charged of fraud by Shakti Shanker Bakchi in India. A criminal case against Momtaz is under trial at Bohrampur Court in West Bengal [Poschim Bangla]. According to the allegation, Momtaz Begum received TK. 200K [US$ 2900] from Shakti Shanker Bakchi, while she did not appear in any of the programs, thus violating the contract and cheating the Indian program organizers. When Momtaz went to Bohrampur for seeking bail in 2010, she was accompanied by her then boyfriend Moinuddin Hassan Chanchal, who contacted attorneys and made arrangements for Momtaz's bail. Recently Kolkata High Court has instructed the Indian Foreign Ministry to revoke multiple visa issued to Momtaz Begum.