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 – has been flown into the country.

The flight carrying the body landed at 7.15pm Saturday and foreign ministry’s South Asia department chief Raqibul Haq received it, director general of the ministry’s external publicity wing Shamim Ahsan told bdnews24.com.

He said the body would be handed over to relatives within the night after completing some paperwork.

Earlier, he told bdnews24.com the Paschimbanga government bore the cost of flying the body to Bangladesh and has promised to pay Rs 10,000 as compensation to Gauranga’s family.

Bangladesh’s deputy high commissioner in Kolkata Mustafizur Rahman oversaw 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 prior to being shfted to Kolkata, 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