After finishing his isha (evening) prayer and arriving home from the mosque, Osman Arslan found out about the coup attempt and went out on to the streets with his neighbor. Initially, they went to Kızılay but then heard the news that General Hulusi Akar was taken a hostage and so they went to the General Staff building. It was there Osman who was shot by the putschist traitors, was martyred while he was hospitalized. He left some money to his wife as he was going out saying, “I will be either a martyr or a veteran, and you will need this.” Osman was 56 years old, from Çorum and was the father of two boys and a girl. He was also retired from the military.
“If I die, I will be a martyr; if I come back, I will be a veteran”
Osman’s wife Satı Arslan, noted that her husband was in the mosque when the events started to take place that night, “He returned home because our daughter said that she was scared. He said that he was going to Kızılay after he came back home. When I asked him what I should do, he replied, ‘Stay up until the morning, pray for the nation.’ He left some money under the pillow. He said, ‘You will need this money in 2-3 days. If I don’t come back, I will be a martyr or a veteran’ and he left. He died as a martyr after a tank opened fire while he was trying to leave Kızılay and go to the Presidential Complex. The only thing that keeps us alive is him becoming a martyr.”
Martyr Osman Arslan was buried in Çorum on Wednesday, July 20th. The martyr’s name was given to an Anatolian high school in his hometown Çorum.
