Former land minister and Pabna district Awami League president Shamsur Rahman Sherif passed away at a city hospital early Thursday. He was 80.
The five-time MP, also a freedom fighter, breathed his last around 5:30am at United Hospital, said Golam Faruk Prince, general secretary of the ruling party’s Pabna unit. He had been suffering from various ailments and was undergoing treatment at the ICU of the hospital for the last several days.
President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina expressed deep shock at the death of the veteran politician.
They prayed for the eternal peace of the departed soul and conveyed deep sympathy to the bereaved family.
President Hamid said the Awami League lost an efficient organiser as well as a veteran politician. “The loss at his death is really irreparable to the political arena of Bangladesh,” he said.
In her condolence message, the Prime Minister recalled that Shamsur Rahman Sherif served the country and the nation throughout his life as a soldier of the ideology of the greatest Bengali of all times and Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“Since my return to home in 1981 ending six years in exile, I’ve seen Shamsur Rahman Sherif keeping the Awami League’s flag flying in the greater Pabna area,” she said.
“He led from the front in all democratic movements and struggles. For this, he and his family members had to face inhuman torture and oppression. But he never deviated from the ideology of Bangabandhu and Awami League,” Sheikh Hasina, also the chief of Awami League, recalled.
“As a grassroots leader, he always worked for the socio-economic development of the common people of this area. He was a leader of the people,” she said.
“The country and the nation lost a great freedom fighter and politician and the people of his area lost their beloved leader with the death of Shamsur Rahman Sherif,” said the PM.
