TEHRAN – A TV series portraying the life story of Mehdi Bakeri, the chief of IRGC 31st Shura Division that carried out several major operations during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, is being made at Sima Films, a film production studio affiliated with IRIB.

Hadi Hejazifar is the director of the docudrama named “The Bakeri Martyrs”, which also gives details about Bakeri’s brothers, Ali and Hamid, who were martyred during the unrest of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the war respectively.

The 31st Shura Division under Bakeri conducted numerous operations, including Beit ol-Moqaddas, Wa al-Fajr 1, 2, 3, 4, and Kheibar, and he finally was martyred under siege from Iraqi forces during Operation Badr in 1985.

A group volunteered to bring back his remains, but on their return, their boat was totally destroyed after being targeted by an Iraqi RPG squadron.
 
His brother, Hamid, and some other soldiers were martyred earlier in the heart of the battlefield during Operation Kheibar. His men informed him about the martyrdom on a walkie-talkie, so a group was assigned to bring back Hamid’s body from the arena. However, Mehdi asked them to halt the group, and then told them, “They all are my brothers; if you can bring them all back then bring Hamid back too.”

Hejazifar also stars as Bakeri in the series. In 2013, he also portrayed Ahmad Motevasselian, an IRGC commander who was kidnapped by the Zionist regime in 1982 in Lebanon, in director Mohammad-Hossein Mahdavian’s movie “Standing in the Dust”.

Photo: Hadi Hejazifar portrays Martyr Mehdi Bakeri in the TV series “The Bakeri Martyrs”.
 
MMS/YAW