Bangladesh PM offers last respects to 'old friend' Suvra Mukherjee

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met President Pranab Mukherjee and offered her condolences on the demise of his wife Suvra.

She also visited the 13, Talkatora Road residence of Abhijeet Mukherjee, the President's son, and offered her last respects to Suvra Mukherjee. The First Lady died on Tuesday. She was 74.

Hasina arrived in New Delhi from Dhaka on Wednesday morning to attend the funeral and was received at the airport by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

During her day-long visit to Delhi, she will also hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at his official residence. This will be the second meeting between them since the last interaction in Dhaka when Modi had visited Bangladesh on June 6 and 7 during which the two countries signed 22 pacts to deepen cooperation besides ratifying the historic Land Boundary Agreement.

Hasina's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim said in Dhaka that the Bangladesh premier will be accompanied by Foreign Minister A H Mahmud Ali, her younger sister Sheikh Rehana and daughter Saima Wazed.

Hasina is close to the Mukherjee family and had developed a very close relation with Suvra Mukherjee during her life in exile in Delhi soon after the August 15, 1975 coup that saw the killing of Bangladesh's independence architect Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and most of his family members. Hasina and Rehana escaped the mayhem because they were abroad at that time.

India had provided asylum to Hasina and Rehana for nearly six years post-coup.

Suvra Mukherjee’s ancestral home is in Bhadrabila village in western Bangladesh's Narail district which she had visited last in March 2013.