BNP leader, former minister Hannan Shah dies at 74

Senior BNP leader and former minister ASM Hannan Shah is dead.

Senior Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 27 Sept 2016, 04:12 AM
Updated : 27 Sept 2016, 01:14 PM

The 74-year old passed away at the Raffles Heart Centre in Singapore around 5am on Tuesday.

BNP spokesperson Sayrul Kabir Khan said the veteran politician and former army officer died during treatment there for cardiovascular diseases.

"His son Shah Reazul Hannan gave us the sad news by telephone," Khan, a member of the BNP chairperson's media wing, told bdnews24.com.

Hannan Shah, who was a member of BNP's policymaking National Standing Committee, had become active in the party after retiring from the Bangladesh Army as a brigadier general.

He was admitted to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka on Sep 6 and had been on life support.

On Sep 11, he was transported to Singapore in an air ambulance. He had undergone a surgery there.

Born in October 1941 in Gazipur’s Kapasia, Hannan Shah served as the jute minister in the 1991 BNP government.

BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia and Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir have expressed their condolences over his passing.

Shah is survived by wife Nahid Hannan, daughter Sharmin Hannan and sons Reazul and Shah Rezaul Hannan.

Eldest son Rezaul told bdnews24.com his father’s body will be brought back to Dhaka on Wednesday evening.

A Namaz-e-Janaza will be held at Mohakhali’s DOHS Mosque at 10am on Thursday, another at Parliament's South Plaza at 11:30am, and the third one in front of the BNP’s Naya Paltan headquarters after the Zuhr prayers in the afternoon.

His body would be kept at the CMH mortuary on Thursday night.

On Friday, his remains would be taken to Gazipur. After three funeral prayers at three spots there, Hannan Shah would be buried beside his father’s grave at his ancestral home Chala Bazar.

His father Fakir Abdul Mannan was a minister in the Pakistan government between 1965 and 1968. Hannan Shah’s younger brother Shah Abu Nayeem Mominur Rahman was a judge in the Supreme Court’s Appellate Division.