Ahmed Ilias, one of Bangladesh's best-known Urdu poets, died at a Dhaka hospital on Friday aged 89.
He had been suffering from age-related complications for some time.
Born in 1934 in Kolkata, Ilias settled in Dhaka a few years after the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan and ever since became a face of "partition literature," where some contemporary poets and writers started depicting the pangs of the millions of people who had crossed borders to settle in new lands leaving their ancestral homes behind.
Ahmed Ilias, who has six books of poems to his credit, was a colleague of famous poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz in the newspaper he edited and also took a stand in favour of Bangla as a state language of then Pakistan.
He is survived by six daughters, a son, grandchildren and a host of fans and admirers.
He was the founding head of Al Falah Bangladesh, established in 1981, and an advisor of the Bangla-Urdu Literary Council.
He championed the cause of stranded Biharis in Bangladesh.
