Staff Reporter : Former head of Bangla section of the Voice of America, Iqbal Ahmed, is no more. He died in the US state of Maryland on Sunday (June 27), local time. He was 82 years old at the time of his death. He was the head of the Bangla department from 1983 to 1994. The death of Iqbal Ahmed has cast a shadow of mourning among Bangladeshis in the country and abroad.
It is learned that when Ishtiaq Ahmed, the elder brother of the late Iqbal Ahmed, established the Bangla Department in 1958, Iqbal was only 20 years old as a student. He was associated with the Bengali program from the very beginning. He was born in an aristocratic family of Islampur in old Dhaka. He studied at Collegiate High School and Jagannath College. After passing BA, he moved to America to study at the age of twenty. He started working with the Bangla section of Voice of America (VOA) in 1959. In the beginning it was part time but after a few days it became full time. After going up and down, he became the head of the Bengali department.
In his spare time, Iqbal Ahmed has written on various subjects including poetry and stories. Poet Shamsur Rahman was very close to him and inspired him to write poetry. He loved nature and music very much. His poems have been published in various journals. Iqbal Ahmed’s three uncles were very well known and talented personalities. They are Nazir Ahmed, the founding managing director, film director and celebrity commentator of FDC, Artist Hamidur Rahman and eminent international playwright and Saeed Ahmed are the architects of Ekushey’s Shaheed Minar.
BP/SM
