PM Sheikh Hasina to attend Suvra Mukherjee's funeral

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will fly to New Delhi on Wednesday to attend the funeral of Suvra Mukherjee, the wife of President Pranab Mukherjee.

"She (Hasina) will go to New Delhi tomorrow to attend her (Mukherjee’s) funeral," Hasina's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim told PTI.

He said the prime minister will be accompanied by Foreign Minister A H Mahmud Ali, Hasina’s younger sister Sheikh Rehana and daughter Saima Wazed to the funeral of Suvra who had close personal ties with Hasina and Rehana.

The Bangladesh Premier would leave Dhaka in the morning and return in the afternoon, Karim said.

Hasina developed personal relations with Suvra and rest of the Mukherjee family 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 has her ancestral home at Bhadrabila village in western Bangladesh’s Narail district which she had visited last in March 2013.

Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid mourned Suvra Mukherjee’s death and prayed for eternal peace of the departed soul and conveyed his sympathy to his Indian counterpart and other members of the bereaved family.

The PMO also issued a separate condolence message in which Hasina paid rich tributes to Suvra Mukherjee recalling memories with her in the days of her distress.

Gloom descended on Bhandrabila village in Narail, Suvra Mukherejee's ancestral home with grief-stricken relatives gathering there, state-run BSS news agency reported.