Staff Reporter :
Former Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Dr SA Samad laid to eternal rest at his home city in Mymensingh on Thursday.
The valiant freedom fighter was buried with state honor.
Earlier, bugles played the last post as Dr. SA Samad, also the then private secretary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was extended the ceremonial honour guard as part of the state honour in Baridhara Jame Masjid premises in the morning before his first namaz-e-janaza.
On behalf of President M Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, their Military Secretaries Major General SM Salahuddin Islam and Major General Naqib Ahmed Chowdhury paid
tributes to SA Samad by placing wreaths on his coffin.
Different organization, political parties and distinguished people including cabinet members, civil society members, cultural personalities and senior bureaucrats paid tributes and joined the Namaz e janaja at Baridhara Jame Masjid.
Then the body of Dr Samad, a life-long bachelor, was taken to his ancestral home in Gafargaon upazila of Mymensingh where the people participated of his second nanaj-e-zanaja.
Then he was buried at his family graveyard at 3:10pm.
Local MPs, politicians, social and cultural personalities along with people from all walks of life joined the second nanaj-e-zanaja and burial function.
Besides, another guard of honour was given to SA Samad by Mymensingh district administration before his burial.
Dr SA Samad breathed his last while asleep at his city residence at the age of 79 a day after he was released from a hospital where he received treatment for brain complications.
Dr SA Samad previously served as a faculty member of Dhaka University’s economics department.
Born in 1942, he was the son of prominent lawyer Syed Abdul Ghani.
He had his early schooling in Dhaka and studied economics at the University of Dhaka.
He studied also at the University of California and Boston University, from where he obtained his doctorate degree in economics in 1979.
Dr SA Samad taught economics at the Dhaka University, Boston State College, Boston University, Bangladesh Administrative Staff College, and Public Administration Training Center and in the Asia-Pacific region.
He headed several national committees on public sector reforms and served as presidential economic adviser.
He played a crucial role in reaching the historic 1996 Ganges Water Sharing Treaty with India and the peace agreement with Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samity in1997.
In 1990s he was appointed the executive chairman of the then BOI with the status of a Cabinet Minister.
Dr SA Samad was the president of Mujibnagar Employees’ (freedom fighters) Welfare Association during the period of 1996 to 2001 (till his retirement).
He also served as a programme director (economic management and information technology) at the UN Asia and Pacific Development Center (APDC) in Kuala Lumpur from 1990 to 1996.
