The arrival of mortal remains of popular writer Humayun Ahmed, who died in a New York hospital late Thursday night, has been deferred by a day as tickets for a New York–Dhaka flight were not instantly available.
The Bangladesh government has arranged tickets for Humayun’s family and his close relatives and his coffin, the Bangladesh envoy to the United Nations said.
‘They will leave New York about noon in an Emirates flight that will reach Dhaka on Monday,’ the envoy, MA Momen, said on Saturday.
Humayun’s wife Meher Afroz Shaon, sons Nishad and Ninit, younger brother Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and his wife Yasmin Haque, and Mazharul Islam, Humayun’s publisher, will be arriving with the coffin.
Humayun’s youngest brother Ahsan Habib said that the coffin was expected to reach
Dhaka about 9:00am. On reaching home, the body will be taken to the Central Shaheed Minar for public viewing.
The schedule for funeral prayers and place for his burial were yet to be decided. The family said that they were looking for any notes Humayun
might have left on where he had wished to be buried.
The family said that they would, otherwise, make a decision after a discussion among them. Humayn after he had returned from the United States having undergone chemotherapy cycles and before leaving the country for surgeries, told several newsmen that he wished to be buried at Nuhash Palli.
Humayun’s first funeral prayer was held at the Jamaica Muslim Centre in New York after the juma prayers on Friday
which several thousand people attended. Bangladeshi expatriates in
New York said that it had been the largest funeral every for any Bengali in New York.
The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, meanwhile visited Humayun’s mother Ayesha Faiz. Humayun’s brother Ahsan Habib and sisters were present at that time.