Band musician Shafin Ahmed passes away

Popular band musician Shafin Ahmed passed away while undergoing treatment at a hospital in Virginia in the US Thursday morning.

The 63-year old musician breathed his last at 6:50 am Bangladesh time, said his brother Hamin Ahmed to Prothom Alo.

Shafin Ahmed left behind his wife and three children to mourn his death.

“Shafin recently went to the US to take part in concert programmes. He had a concert in Virginia on 20 July, but the show had to be cancelled as he had fallen sick before the programme. He was admitted to hospital that day. He was put on life support as various of his organs started failing. But he could not be brought back,” Hamin Ahmed said.

He further said they have a few close relatives staying in the US. They were with Shafin Ahmed that time.

Hamin Ahmed will leave the country for the US Thursday night and start proceedings to bring the body back home.

Shafin Ahmed was born on 14 February in 1961. His mother is illustrious singer Firoza Begum and father a music maestro Kamal Dasgupta.

He took his lessons of Classical Music from his father and Nazrul Sangeet from his mother.

Shafin and his elder brother Hamin came in touch with western music while completing their studies in the UK. Upon returning home, they formed band group Miles, which is one of the top Bands of the country.

Nearly 90 per cent of the songs of this band were sung by Shafin and garnered huge popularity.

He was a bassist as well.

However, he formed a new team distancing himself from Miles a few years ago.

Some of Shafin’s popular songs include: ‘Aj jonmodin tomar’, ‘chad tara surjo nau tumi’, ‘jwala jwala antore’, ‘firiye dao harano prem’, ‘fire ele na’, ‘hello Dhaka’, ‘jatiya sangiter dwitiyo line’ and so on.

He released a solo album with the songs of his father Kamal Dasgupta too.

He joined politics as well and became talk of the town contesting as a mayoral candidate in the Dhaka North City Corporation election.