AR Khan no more

Dr. AR Khan, renowned astronomer and former general secretary of Bangladesh Chess Federation, passed away in the early hours of Monday at the Saint Mary Hospital in London. He was 84.

Born in 1932 at Bikrampur of then Dhaka, A R Khan completed his masters in Physics from Dhaka University in 1955 and started his career in the University. He joined the Cavendish laboratory in the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge in 1960 as a Colombo fellow.

Later, he joined Imperial College of London in 1962 and completed his PHD there. He then became a teacher first in the physics department and then at the applied physics department (department of electrical and electronics). He was also the founder of Bangladesh Astronomical Society.

Dr AR Khan served the Bangladesh Chess Federation as general secretary from 1976 to 1984 and was the vice president of the same federation from 1984 to 2001. Khan was also the first international chess arbiter in Bangladesh. He was also the chief arbiter of a match between former world chess champion GM Viswanathan Anand and GM Aleksey Dreev.