Joyeeta Award winner and Rajshahi's sole woman newspaper hawker Dil Afroze Khuki passed away at Mother Teresa Home in Rajshahi on Thursday. She was 62-years-old.
The body has been buried in Rajshahi's Tikapara cemetery after Maghrib prayer on Thursday.
The Quantum Foundation took responsibility of the burial.
Rajshahi Deputy Commissioner Shamim Ahmed, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Education and ICT) Joya Maria Pereira, Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Kalyan Chowdhury, RMP Special Superintendent of Police Md Abdur Rakib, Assistant Commissioner and Executive Magistrate (Secretary Branch) Md Shamsul Islam also paid a visit to the home after being informed of Khuki's death.
Awami League Presidium Member and Rajshahi City Corporation Mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton expressed deep sorrow over the death of Dil Afroze Khuki. The mayor expressed his grief in a condolence statement on Thursday.
In 2020, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the responsibility of Khuki, who had already been selling newspapers in Rajshahi for over 30 years.
The same year, Khuki was honoured with the Joyeeta Award for her success in overcoming various difficulties and challenges.
Acknowledging the honour, Khuki said: “This is a great honour for me. If the state stands by the side of less fortunate women like me, we will move forward, not as neglected backward parts of society, but as empowered and successful with equal rights.”
Khuki was a resident of Seroil area in Rajshahi city, used to buy newspapers from agents near her home, and walked through the city streets and narrow alleys to sell those.
Local sources said Khuki was the 10th among seven sisters and five brothers. She attended Bharateswari Homes boarding school in Tangail in the 1980s, and was married off, and widowed at an early age.
In 1991, she started working as a newspaper hawker by selling the now-defunct Rajshahi-based weekly Duniya.
