PDP chairman Ferdous Ahmed Qureshi no more

Chairman of Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) and former vice president (VP) of Dhaka University Central Students' Union (DUCSU) Ferdous Ahmed Qureshi passed away on Monday afternoon.

Qureshi breathed his last at his daughter's house in Dhaka cantonment area at around 1:30pm at the age of 79.

He has been suffering from multiple illnesses after having a brain hemorrhage in 2015, said his wife Nilufar Panna Qureshi.

Ferdous Qureshi’s first namaz-e-janaza will be held at the Jatiya Press Club at 10:00am on Tuesday and he would be laid to rest at his family graveyard at Basudebpur village in Feni’s Daganbhuiyan upazila, his daughter Paromita Qureshi told Prothom Alo.

Apart from politics, Qureshi was also renowned as a journalist and served as editor of Dainik Deshbangla.

A frontline student leader in 6-point movement, mass upsurge of 1969 and 11-point movement, Qureshi was the president of Pakistan Chhatra League in 1960s. He was elected DUCSU VP in 1961.

He was the first joint secretary general of BNP after the party was founded in 1978.

Later in 2007 during the army-backed 1/11 regime, he left BNP and established the PDP. The party came to be known as ‘King’s Party’ at that time.

He left behind his wife, two daughters and a son to mourn his death.