Veteran politician Pankaj Bhattacharya passes away

Veteran politician and one of the organisers of the country's Liberation War Pankaj Bhattacharya passed away at a hospital in the capital early Monday. He was 83.

He breathed his last at 12:25 am at Health and Hope Hospital.

Sammilita Samajik Andolan general secretary Saleh Ahmed confirmed the news.

Pankaj,  the president of Oikya NAP, was admitted to the hospital on April 17. He suffered a cardiac arrest on Saturday morning. He was then put on life support.

Born in August 1939, Pankaj grew up in Noapara of Chattogram’s Raozan.

He became a vice-president of East Pakistan Students’ Union in 1962 and then became the student organisation’s executive president.

Pankaj Bhattacharya served as a deputy commander of the NAP-Communist Party-Students Union Special Guerrilla Force during Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971.

After the Liberation, he became the general secretary of the National Awami Party.

He was one of the founding leaders of Gonoforum led by Dr Kamal Hossain and a presidium member of the party.

In 2013, he founded Oikya NAP.