NEW DELHI, Friday, Aug. 15 —Sheik Mujibur Rahman, the President of Bangladesh, was overthrown and killed today in a military coup d'etat, according to Government broadcasts monitored in India.

In announcing the overthrow of what it called the “autocratic government,” Radio Dacca said:

“This step has been taken in the greater interests of the country.”

According to Indian press reports from Dacca, gunshots were heard shortly after midnight near Sheik Mujib's residence in Dhanmundi, an affluent residential area. But calm had returned to the city by dawn.

The broadcast proclaimed martial law and a 24‐hour curfew for an indefinite period.

The radio said that the coup had been led by Khondakar Moshtaque Ahmed, a Cabinet minister who had assumed the presidency.

In a broadcast to the nation this morning, Mr. Ahmed appealed to the people and the armed forces to cooperate with the new Government in maintaining peace and order, and asked the public to remain

“Mr. Ahmed has become the president of the country,” the radio said. “All patriotic and peace‐loving citizens of the country are requested to cooperate with the new government.

“Bangladesh Rifles [the Bangladesh paramilitary force? and the police are asked to report to the nearest army command.

“Anybody trying to resist the new revolutionary Government or violate any instructions given so far will be dealt with severely. The new Government appeals to all peace‐loving countries of the world for recognition.”

Bangladesh, which had been East Pakistan, became independent after the 1971 war between India and Pakistan. It is one of the poorest countries in the world.

As 75 million people, most illiterate and undernourished, are crowded into a land the area of Wisconsin. Annual floods take a devastating toll.

According to diplomatic. sources in New Delhi the coup took place at around dawn.

Sporadic, gunfire was reported in Dacca, the capital, but the country was generally; said to be calm.

Mr. Ahmed the new President is a long‐time associate of Sheik Mujib's. Like Sheik: Mujib, he was a leader of the Awami League, which led the struggle for independence.

After independence. Mr. Ahmed was Minister of Commerce and Foreign Trade in the Mujib Government.

Sheik Mujib, who was they hero of the struggle for independence and who referred to himself as the father of the nation, had assumed an increasingly autocratic position in the last year.

In January he imposed a strong presidential system on the country, changing the Constitution and assuming the title of President.

The amendment to the Constitution removed a provision for “effective participation by the people through their elected representatives,” and declared in its place that executive authority was to be exercised by the President “either directly or through officers subordinate to him.”

Two months ago, he nationalized the press, which had been critical of his Government, and then closed most of the newspapers.

Mr. Ahmed was one of the organizers of the guerrilla militia that was central to the rebellion against the Pakistani Government.

At 38, he was one of the youngest Cabinet members of the Mujib Government and one of the leading figures who helped in the march of the Indian Army into Bangladesh during the 1971 war. Diplomats consider him relatively leftist.

While Sheik Mujib was in jail in Rawalpindi, in the political crisis leading to the war, Mr. Ahmed was Foreign Minister of the Bangladesh Government that functioned from Calcutta.

He has been in the Government since independence and was a senior vice‐president of the Awami League.

Sheik Mujib, who was 55 years old, was a charismatic and magnetic leader. A tall man with graying hair and a trim mustache, he usually wore a loose vest over white cotton pantaloons, and a long‐sleeved, pajama‐style shirt.

Although he was loved by his Bengali people, who before independence had felt persecuted by the West Pakistanis, his accomplishments as leader of the new nation were generally regarded as meager, compared with Bangladesh's overwhelming problems of poverty and population.

Bengali nationalism in his homeland dates to the nineteen‐forties, when India and Pakistan achieved independence from Britain. Sheik Mujib was active from the beginning, spending more than 10 years in Pakistani prisons as an agitator for greater Bengali autonomy.

“Prison is my other home,” he once said.

In March of 1971, after efforts for more autonomy hard failed Sheik Mujib declared the independence of Bangladesh—which means Bengali Nation—and became Prime Minister.

Pakistani troops, mostly from the western section of the country, spent months trying to put down the rebellion, and as many as a million people are thought to have been killed. Millions more fled to across the Indian border to Calcutta, which is 150 miles south of Dacca.

Because India was supporting the cause of the new nation, its relations with Pakistan, which are never friendly anyway, deteriorated sharply. In December of 1971, they exploded into a brief war, which the Indian won; assuring the independence of Bangladesh.

Sheik Mujib spent most of the year of the rebellion in a; West Pakistan jail. When he was released, early in 1972, he returned to his grateful young nation and declared:

“My life's goal has been fulfilled.” My Bengal is indepedent.

Americans Safe

Special to The New York Times

WASHINGTON, Aug. 14—The State Department said tonight that it had received word from the United States Embassy it Dacca that a coup d'etat had taken place in Bangladesh.

The spokesman said that there was “no danger to American lives or property” in the reported coup.

U.N. Delegate Awaits Word

S. A. Karim, Bangladesh's representative at the United Nations, said through an aide that he could make no comment until he received information from Dacca.

Earlier, when a reporter called the aide, A. Razzaque Khan, also a member of Bangladesh's United Nations mission, Mr. Khan said he did not then know that the Government had been ousted. He called the reported death of the President “dreadful news.”