DHAKA: The body of Ekushey Padak winner USA expatriate poet Shahid Qadri has reached Dhaka on Wednesday morning (August 31).

A jet of Emirates Airlines, carrying the body, arrived at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport around 9:00am.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s special assistant Mahbubul Huq Shakil received the body at the airport.

Representatives of PMO, cultural affairs ministry and expatriate welfare and overseas employment ministry were also present here.

The body of poet will be taken to the Central Shaheed Minar in the city around 11:30am and kept there till 12:30pm so that people from all walks of life can pay their respect to him.

Later, it will be buried at Mirpur Martyred Intellectual Graveyard.

Meanwhile, Bangla Academy deputy director M Maniruzzaman said the body of poet Shahid Qadri will be taken to the academy at 11:00am to pay last respect.

Earlier in the day, poet’s wife Neera Qadri, their son Adnan Qadri and family friend Sabina arrived at Dhaka by a jet of Qatar Airways around 5:10am.

One of the major contemporary poets of Bengali Literature, Shahid Qadri, breathed his last at Long Island’s North Shore University Hospital on Sunday morning (USA time). He was 74.

The prominent post-1947 Bengali poet was suffering from kidney diseases for a long time. He also caught pneumonia lately.

Qadri was admitted to the hospital on August 21 as his condition deteriorated.

He was awarded Bangla Academy Prize in 1973 and Ekushey Padak in 2011.

His famous books are: Uttaradhikar (Inheritance), Tomake Obhibadon Priyatama (Salute to You, Dearest), Kothao Kono Krondon Nei (Weeping Nowhere) and Amar Chumbangullo Pouchhiye Dio (Please, Convey My Kisses).

BDST: 1014 HRS, AUG 31, 2016
SR