Journalist Zaglul laid to rest with heavy hearts
With heavy hearts overshadowed with bereavement, people from all walks of life yesterday paid their last tribute to veteran journalist Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury who died in a tragic road crash in the capital's Karwan Bazar on Saturday. He was 66.
Today journalists will form a human chain before Jatiya Press Club protesting the death. Law enforcers are yet to identify the bus driver and ascertain whether Zaglul was forced to get off the moving vehicle.
Ministers, politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats, journalists and jurists filed slowly before the coffin, placed wreaths and stood in solemn silence for some time on the capital's Jatiya Press Club premises, where it was kept for around one and a half hours from around 3:00pm.
He was laid to rest in Azimpur graveyard, in the same spot where his mother Saduren Nessa was buried, following a namaz-e-janaza at Jatiya Press Club after Asr prayers.
The first namaz-e-janaza was held after Zohr prayers at the Banani central mosque, where the body was taken from the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University mortuary.
The Daily Star caught up with many people at the press club who expressed their grief at the loss of the former chief editor and managing director of the state-run Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha.
“We” could not ensure road safety, said Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid, expressing the need for making laws more stringent and increasing their enforcement. He recalled Zaglul having immense knowledge on political issues and journalism.
Former chief information commissioner Muhammad Zamir stated of never seeing, in his career as an ambassador to seven countries and travels to 62, the manner in which passengers in Bangladesh were forced off moving buses.
Zaglul was not only a journalist but also an expert on diplomacy, for which they used to take suggestions from him, he added.
“I have lost a friend and a good human being,” said Mujahidul Islam Selim, president of the Communist Party of Bangladesh, adding that the death was a result of “the way the country and society was running”.
Jatiya Press Club President Kamal Uddin Sabuj said Zaglul's write-ups on international issues, especially South Asian affairs, “took him to a unique height”.
Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists President Monjurul Ahsan Bulbul said Zaglul was among those rare personalities who had deep knowledge on diplomatic and political issues and young journalists could learn a lot from him.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Food Minister Md Qamrul Islam, Social Welfare Minister Syed Mohsin Ali, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, The Daily Star Editor and Publisher Mahfuz Anam and News Today Editor Reaz Ahmed were present.
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