desk report ||
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Special Assistant Mahbubul Hoque Shakil has died in Dhaka.
The former Bangladesh Chhatra League leader was 47 years old.
He died in a Japanese restaurant in Gulshan, Samdado, the prime minister’s Assistant Press Secretary Asif Kabir told bdnews24.com on Tuesday afternoon.
Forensic experts were seen entering the restaurant at 5pm. Thirty minutes later, Awami League Presidium member Syed Ashraful Islam came to the site.
An ambulance carried the body away from the restaurant at 5:50pm.
State Minister for Energy Nasrul Hamid was at the restaurant after receiving the news of his death.
Shakil’s body will be at kept at BIRDEM hospital’s morgue, he told reporters outside Samdado.
An autopsy will be conducted before the namaz-e-janaza is held at Dhaka University at 11am Wednesday.
Five employees of the Japanese restaurant were picked up on a police van around 4:10pm, said Golam Mujtaba Dhruba, bdnews24.com correspondent who was on site.
Gulshan Police Station OC Sirajul Islam refused to comment on the matter.
Prime Minister Hasina has mourned the death of her aide, said Ihsanul Karim, her Press Secretary. Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury has also offered condolences.
Shakil was chief executive officer of the Centre for Research and Information (CRI), the Awami League’s research cell formed after the 2001 election.
He was appointed deputy press secretary to Prime Minister Hasina after the Awami League came to power in 2008.
In 2012, he was made her special assistant for media.
Two years later, he was simply a special assistant to the PM, with the accord of an additional secretary.
Born in Tangail in 1968, he is the son of lawyer Jahirul Hoque Khoka, president of the Awami League’s chapter in Mymensingh district.
He received his bachelors and masters degrees in sociology from Dhaka University. Ihsanul Karim, prime minister’s Military Secretary Maj Gen Miah Md Joynul Abedin and Awami League Joint General Secretary Mahbub-Ul Alam Hanif were among those who came to the restaurant after hearing the news.The former student leader wrote poems and has two books to his name ‘Kherokhatar Pata Theke’ (From Diary Pages) and ‘Mon Kharaper Garhi’ (The journey of melancholy).
He has left behind a lawyer wife and a daughter.