Dhaka’s first mayor BNP leader Abul Hasnat passes away

Barrister Abul Hasnat, the first mayor of Dhaka City Corporation and a founding member of BNP, passed away on Friday at his residence in London. He was 82.

Hasnat breathed his last around 5:00am (local time) due to old age complications, said his son Rajib Hasnat.

He left behind his wife Nasreen Begum, a son and a daughter.

Hasnat, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, went to the UK in 2019, but could not return to the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

He served as the first mayor of Dhaka City Corporation during 1977–1982 and again in 1990.

He was a founding member of the BNP standing committee.

He also served as the minister of housing and public works in the cabinet of President Justice Abdus Sattar and Hussain Muhammad Ershad.

He joined the Jatiya Party in 1990 and was elected to parliament from the Dhaka-9 constituency in a by-election as a candidate of the party.

He returned to the BNP after Ershad was overthrown in 1990.