The body of BNP leader and former mayor of undivided Dhaka City Corporation Sadeque Hossain Khoka is expected to arrive here from the USA on Thursday morning.
A flight of Emirates Airlines carrying Khoka’s body will leave John F Kennedy Airport at 11pm (local time) today and reach Dhaka on Thursday morning, his son IshraqueHossain told UNB.
Ishraque said his father’s first namaz-e-janazaheld at Jamaica Muslim Center, New York, on Monday night where huge Bangladeshis living in the US attended.
“We’ve completed all necessary preparations and received all the travel documents to take my father’s body to Bangladesh along with my mother,” he said.
Several janazas will be held in the capital, including one in front of South Plaza of National Parliament at 11 am, and the body will be kept at the Central Shaheed Minar at 12 pm so that people could pay their last respect to the valiant freedom fighter, BNP chairperson’s media wing member Sayrul Kabir Khan said quoting its secretary general Mirza Fakhurl Islam Alamgir.
Khoka’s body will be taken to BNP central office after Johr prayers and will be kept at Nagar Bhaban at 3pm, he said.
Khoka will be buried at Jurain Graveyard beside the graves of his parents as per his last wish after the last namaj-e-janaza at Dhupkhola field.
Sadeque Hossain Khoka, 67, also a Freedom Fighter who had long been suffering from cancer, died at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York around 1:50pm (BST) on Monday.
Khoka had been undergoing treatment at the hospital since October 18 for cancer with some other health complications.
Khoka is survived by his wife IsmatAra, daughter SarikaSadeque, sons Ishraque,IsfaqueHossain and a host of relatives, followers and well-wishers to mourn his death.
He along with his wife went to the USA in 2014 for treatment while the validity of their passports expired in 2017.
source: UNB