Former MP and freedom fighter Hazera Sultana passes away

Hazera Sultana, politburo member of the Workers Party of Bangladesh, former MP and freedom fighter, has died.

She passed away while undergoing treatment at City Hospital in Mohammadpur, Dhaka, on Thursday night, Workers Party central committee leader Mostafa Alamgir Ratan said.

Hazera Sultana was 76. She is survived by her only daughter Rana Sultana and son-in-law Moniruzzaman.

Ratan said her body would be kept at the mortuary of a private hospital today. Her daughter lives in Canada, and after she returns home on Saturday, Hazera Sultana will be buried at her ancestral home in Tangail.

Hazera Sultana was born in 1950 in Chhatihati village of Nagbari union under Kalihati upazila in Tangail. After passing HSC from Kumudini College in 1968, she enrolled at Government Saadat College and became involved in politics.

In 1970, she was president of the Tangail district unit of the Revolutionary Student Union and a member of its central committee. In March 1971, an arrest warrant was issued against her for burning the Pakistani flag at the PTI ground in Tangail.

Later, under the initiative of communist revolutionaries, an armed force was formed in the Jamunachar area of Tangail under the leadership of commander Abdul Halim, also known as Iqbal. Hazera Sultana received training there and took part in the Liberation War.

She served as president of Bangladesh Nari Mukti Sangsad and was also editor of the Workers Party mouthpiece weekly Natun Kotha at one time.

Leaders of the Workers Party, acting president Mahmudul Hasan Manik and acting general secretary Nur Ahmed Bakul, expressed deep condolence at her death and prayed for the salvation of her departed soul.

Her coffin will be taken to the party office on Topkhana Road at 10:00 am on Sunday, where leaders and activists will pay their last respects.