Khoka passes away in US

Freedom fighter and former mayor of undivided Dhaka City Corporation Sadeque Hossain Khoka passed away yesterday in the USA.

He was 68.

The BNP vice chairman breathed his last while undergoing treatment for cancer in a hospital. He had been suffering from kidney cancer since 2014 and his condition worsened a few days ago.

“My father died at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York yesterday at 2:15pm [Bangladesh time],” Ishraque Hossain, eldest son of Khoka, told The Daily Star over phone from New York.

The BNP leader was last admitted to the cancer centre in Manhattan on October 18 after an infection developed in his mouth. On October 27, a tumour was removed from his trachea.

On receiving the news of his father’s health worsening, Ishraque travelled to New York last week.

He said that his father wished to be buried at Jurain where his grandparents were laid to rest.

Khoka left behind his wife Ismat Ara and two sons and daughter.

He went to the US in May 2014 for treatment and had been staying at a house in Queens.

A number of corruption cases were filed against him after he left Bangladesh and he had been sentenced to jail in some of them.

In separate statements, BNP acting chief Tarique Rahman and Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir gave their condolences and extended sympathy to the bereaved family.

“We are expecting that the government will not create any obstacle to bring back the body of a freedom fighter,” Mirza Fakhrul told The Daily Star.

The passports of Khoka and his wife expired in 2017. They had applied for renewed passports to the consulate but were yet to get those.

The government earlier said its Mission in New York is ready to issue “travel permits” if Khoka’s family applies for those.

“Our Mission [in New York] will take necessary steps if Sadeque Hossain Khoka’s family applies for travel permits,” State Minister for Foreign Affairs M Shahriar Alam said in a post on his Facebook profile on Sunday.

Information Minister Hasan Mahmud yesterday said the government will help bring back the body of Khoka, adding that it is ready to extend all kinds of assistance to his family.

The minister has expressed his deep condolences over Khoka’s death. “I am deeply saddened by his death, and pray for the eternal peace of the departed soul.”

Jatiya party Chairman GM Quader, Gonoforum President Dr. Kamal Hossain, CPB president Mujahidul Islam Selim, DSCC mayor Sayeed Khokon, DNCC mayor Atiqul Islam, Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Janata League president Kader Siddique, and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal President Hasanul Huq Inu expressed deep condolence on the death of Khoka.

Khoka, born in Dhaka on October 1, 1951, was a student of Dhaka University’s psychology department. He was involved with politics since his student life and was an elected member of East Pakistan Chhatra Union Dhaka chapter in 1966. He took part in the movement against the Ayub regime.

He stepped into politics by joining Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani’s National Awami Party.

At the age of 19, he participated in the 1971 Liberation War in sector-2 and took part in a number of guerrilla operations in and around Dhaka. 

Khoka was awarded with the title of Bir Pratik for his role in the war.

He was elected a municipal commissioner on 1977. He then joined BNP in 1984 and played a crucial role in the movement against the autocratic regime of HM Ershad.

Khoka also took the charge of Brothers Union Sports Club in 1972 and was its general secretary till 1979. 

From 1979-89, he was general secretary of Dhaka Metropolitan Football Association and joint secretary of Bangladesh Football Federation.

He was first elected lawmaker from Dhaka-7, after defeating the then Awami League President Sheikh Hasina. He was made the state minister for youth and sports. That victory was what drew the people’s attention to him. 

He was also elected lawmaker in the sixth, seventh and eighth parliaments. 

Khoka earned the trust of old Dhaka residents after he played a vital role in diffusing tensions that rose in the area centring the demolishing of Babri Mosque in India in 1992. 

His popularity in old town was what made him the only BNP candidate in Dhaka to become an elected lawmaker in the 1996 election. 

Khoka was given the charge of reorganising the party that year, after the party-backed candidate Mirza Abbas was defeated in the 1994 Dhaka City Corporation election.  

After being elected in parliament in 2001, he became the fisheries and livestock minister.

He was elected mayor of Dhaka City Corporation on April 25, 2002, and held the post for nearly nine years until the corporation split in two for providing better services. At the same time, he was made president of BNP’s Dhaka city unit.

Khoka was arrested days before the January 5 national election in 2014. 

Released on bail from jail, he was admitted to Birdem Hospital in the capital, but doctors could not detect his health problem. 

He then went to the US on May 14, 2014, and had been receiving treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center under Dr James Shieh’s supervision.