Tens of thousands of mourners gathered yesterday at a university in Dhaka to pay their last respects to Azam Khan, the country’s most famous pop star, who died over the weekend.
Khan, 62, who also fought in the country’s liberation war against Pakistan in 1971, died on Sunday morning after a year-long battle with cancer, triggering an outpouring of grief in Bangladesh’s vibrant music world.
Khan shot to fame in the 1970s after he revolutionized the South Asian country’s staid music scene with pop and rock numbers that dominated the charts through the 1980s.
Mourners flocked to a Dhaka hospital after news of his death broke and huge crowds congregated again yesterday at the Dhaka University campus to bid farewell to Khan, whose body was on display before being taken to a mosque.
“The mourners include young boys and very old men, devout Muslims and smart office executives. Most have brought flowers to pay their last respects,” police inspector Hossain Shahid Chowdhury said.
Khan was rushed to Singapore last year after he was diagnosed with oral cancer, but was forced to return to Bangladesh because of a lack of money, which he blamed on music piracy. Khan bemoaned Bangladesh’s poor copyright laws, saying he could not pay for his medical treatment despite having made 17 hit albums.
“I would have been a millionaire with [a] personal jet of my own had I lived in the West. Yet I live like a pauper. All I have got is love from ordinary folks,” he said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese