Auranga killed in road crash

BNP National Executive Committee member and former lawmaker KM Hemayet Ullah Auranga and five others were killed when his car collided head-on with a bus on Dhaka-Mawa highway in Louhajang yesterday.
Police and locals said around 4:00pm the front left tyre of the sports utility vehicle exploded near Medenimandal of Louhajang upazila on the highway causing it to lose control and veer into the path of an oncoming bus. Having been hit by the bus head on, the car then hit a tree.
Former Awami League lawmaker Auranga, 60, along with Hazrat Ali, 44, Jamal Munshi, 50, and Md Yasin, 45, died on the spot. Injured Nururddin Peda, 35, died at a local hospital around 5:00pm and Nuruzzaman died around 7:45pm at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
They were leaders of opposition BNP, Swechchhasebak Dal and Chhatra Dal. Injured Babu and driver of the car, Jalal, were being treated at DMCH.
The crash halted vehicular movement on the highway for an hour triggering long tailback.
From his Dhaka home, Auranga was going to attend an Iftar party organised by Damuradda BNP in Shariatpur. Damuradda was Auranga's home town.
Auranga's body was taken to Sreenagar Police Station in Munshiganj, where his wife Tahmina along with their son Arjun, a class-XI student, and two-year-old daughter Waiza rushed to. It was a heartrending scene as the entire family was in tears.
Auranga had good organising capability for which he earned repute in his early days when he was in Awami League's youth front Jubo League. He maintained his own group in Jubo League.
Before that, he was an influential leader of pro-Awami League student body Chhatra League in Dhaka University, for which he received considerable amount of flak.
Auranga was elected lawmaker in 1991 from Shariatpur-1 constituency with now ruling Awami League ticket. He became lawmaker again in 2001 as an independent candidate after failing to get Awami League backing.
Despite his great passion for Awami League and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, internal party feud led Auranga to leave his party of 40 years and join BNP in 2007.
In his new party, he was neither very comfortable nor active, his associates cited several times.
In 2008 national election, Auranga got BNP ticket for Shariatpur-3 constituency but lost out to late Awami League leader and his former party colleague Abdur Razzaq.