Singer Shammi Akhtar dies after her long battle with cancer

Singer Shammi Akhtar died on Tuesday at the age of 62 after battling cancer for five years, said her family.

The playback singer breathed her last around 4pm on her way to a Dhaka hospital.

“We were taking her to the hospital as her condition deteriorated, but she passed away before we could reach there,” her husband Akramul Islam, a folk singer, told bdnews24.com.

Akhtar received the National Film Award in 2010 for her playback song “Bhalobashlei Shobar Shathe Ghor Bandha Jay Na”.

She debuted as a playback singer in the 1970s with the movie ‘Ashikkhito’.

In 1977, Akhtar married folksinger Islam. The couple has a son and a daughter.