Former state minister for health and family welfare Mizanur Rahman Sinha, also managing director of Acme Laboratories Ltd and Acme Group, died while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Singapore early Saturday.
He was 83.
Munshiganj-2 lawmaker Abdus Salam Azad said Sinha died at around 2am after a prolonged illness.
“He had long been undergoing treatment there. Efforts are underway to bring his body back to Bangladesh. Details will be announced later,” Salam said.
Sinha’s daughter, Acme Deputy Managing Director Tasnim Sinha, also confirmed her father’s death in a Facebook post.
Sinha had been nominated by the BNP from Munshiganj-2, Louhajang-Tongibari, for the 13th parliamentary election.
But after he fell ill, BNP Joint Secretary General Abdus Salam Azad was nominated in his place.
Sinha was elected MP from Munshiganj-2 in the seventh parliamentary election in 1996 and again in the eighth parliamentary election in 2001 as a BNP candidate.
After the 2001 election, he served as state minister for health and family welfare in the cabinet led by former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia.
He was also treasurer of the BNP central executive committee and convener of the Munshiganj district unit of the BNP.
Sinha was from Dohuri village of Kolma union in Louhajang upazila of Munshiganj. His father was Hamidur Rahman Sinha and his mother Nurjahan Sinha.
He spent part of his childhood in Kolkata before completing higher secondary education at Government Tolaram College in Narayanganj. He later earned a degree in business studies from the University of Dhaka.
Sinha began his professional career at Habib Bank in 1964. After the death of his father, he joined the family-founded Acme Group in 1975 and became its managing director in 1983.
He became involved in politics during his student life.
While studying at Government Tolaram College, he was elected general secretary of the student union there. Later, he joined the BNP.
BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and BNP lawmakers from Munshiganj expressed deep sorrow at Sinha’s death and conveyed sympathy to the bereaved family.
They also prayed for eternal peace of the departed soul.
