Ayesha Foyez laid to rest beside her mother

She was laid to rest around noon on Sunday at the graveyard in the Mohanganj municipality's Doulatpur area in Netrokona.

Earlier in the morning, her last Namaz-e-Janaza was held at a local rice mill owned by her father's family. Thousands of people from Mohanganj attended it.

People of the district, the local administration, and several socio-cultural organisations paid their last respects to Ayesha Foyez, mother of three celebrities -- writers Humayun Ahmed, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and cartoonist Ahsan Habib.

Her brother, Mahbubun Nabi Sheikh, said Ayesha's body reached their ancestral home on Saturday night, accompanied by Iqbal and Habib, her three daughters, first wife of their late elder brother, Gultekin Ahmed, and his son Nuhash, along with other members of the family.

Ayesha Foyez died on Saturday evening at the Labaid Hospital in Dhaka.

The 84-year-old matriarch was suffering various ailments at the time of her admission to the hospital earlier. Born on Mar 23, 1930, at Barhatta's Koitali village, to Abul Hossain and Khairun Nesa, she was married to Foyezur Rahman Ahmed in 1944. Ahmed, a brave and patriotic police officer, died a martyr's death during the 1971 Liberation War. The killing of the Sub-Divisional Police Officer in Pirojpur was the fifth charge against Pak Army collaborator and convicted war criminal Delwar Hossain Sayedee, but it could not be proved. Ayesha was often referred to as ‘Ratnagarbha’ – meaning a woman who has given birth to gem-like children. Her sons have lovingly depicted her in their writings. The nation had solemnly mourned when her much-loved son Humayun Ahmed when died in New York in September, 2012 after battling colon cancer for months. She had written her autobiography, ‘Jiban Je Rakam’, where she re-explored her childhood, marriage, motherhood, the painful disappearance of her husband during the war, and their collective struggle that followed.