Veteran journalist and politician Nirmal Sen breathed his last in a city hospital Tuesday evening at the age of 82. Nirmal’s nephew Kongkon Sen said his uncle died at around 6:30pm at LabAid Hospital.
Nirmal, who fought against the British imperialist regime, was a Language Movement hero and one of the organisers of the independence war in 1971, had been suffering from a lung infection that spread to his blood stream, said Kongkon.
He was also the president of the left-leaning Democratic Revolutionary Party.
DRP general secretary Mushrefa Mishu told New Age that no funeral rituals would take place as Nirmal had donated his body to the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University.
Nirmal’s body will be kept at the BIRDEM mortuary today. On Thursday, his body will be brought to his party office in Topkhana Road at 9:00am, to the Central Shaheed Minaar at 11:00am, and later to the National Press Club.
President Zilllur Rahman, prime minister Sheikh Hasina, and opposition leader Khaleda Zia issued separate statements mourning Nirmal’s death and recalling his contributions to the coun try’political arena and press freedom and sought eternal blessings for the departed soul.
Speaker Abdul Hamid, deputy speaker Shawkat Ali, information minister Hasanul Haque Inu, leaders of the National Press Club, factions of the Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists and the Dhaka Union of Journalists also mourned the political and journalism icon.
A confirm bachelor, Nirmal settled in his ancestral village in Gopalganj after suffering a cerebral infraction and had been receiving medical treatment at home and abroad since 2003.
He was born in that village on August 3, 1930. He began his political career through the anti-British movement and was a member of the Kolkata-based left-wing Revolutionary Socialist Party.
He formed a new left-leaning political party styled Sramik Krishok Samajbadi Dal in 1968 and became its general secretary in 1988. He became the president of the Democratic Revolutionary Party in 2008 and held the office till his death.
He was one of the lead vocals against the military rules of Ziaur Rahman and Hussain Muhammad Ershad.
Nirmal started his carrier in journalism at the vernacular daily Jehad in 1961. Later he joined the daily Ittefaq as an assistant editor. He earned a wide reputation for his column written in the daily under the pen name Aniket, for his column Shababhik Mrittur Guarantee Chai, and others.
He was also elected the president of the DUJ and the BFUJ and played a pioneering role in ensuring press freedom and journalists’ rights in the country.
He was the author of more than 10 books.
-With New Age input
