The body of 70-year-old Gauranga Mandal – a resident of Sirajdikhan upazila of Munshiganj and one of the 89 killed in the towering blaze at private AMRI Hospital in Kolkata on Friday – will fly into the country on Saturday.

“The body will be flown in from Kolkata and will be received by the foreign ministry’s South Asia department chief at the airport,” director general of the ministry’s external publicity wing Shamim Ahsan told bdnews24.com.

According to earlier information, the flight was scheduled to reach Dhaka in the afternoon itself.

He added that the West Bengal government is bearing the cost of flying the body to Bangladesh and has promised to pay Rs 10,000 as compensation to Gauranga Mandal. Bangladesh’s deputy high commissioner in Kolkata Mustafizur Rahman is overseeing the operation.

AMRI, a multi-storeyed private hospital in Dhakuria, Kolkata turned into a towering inferno early Friday morning. Among the 89 dead, there are 70 patients and three staff members.

The 70-year-old was a farmer of Kanainagar village of Chitrakoat union. Gauranga’s son and his nephew Rakkhit Roy accompanied him to Kolkata and admitted him to AMRI Hospital last week. He was treated for excessive accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in the brain for about a month in Dhaka, relatives said.

Rakkhit conveyed the message to Gauranga’s family around noon, said the deceased’s nephew Jyotish Mandal.

Shamim also said that during Gauranga’s autopsy in SSKM Hospital, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banarjee stood outside the morgue. She talked to Gauranga’s family members and assured them of assistance.

bdnews24.com