Actor Ataur Rahman passes away

Veteran theatre personality, actor and playwright Ataur Rahman has passed away. He died at around 12:30am on Tuesday (May 12) at a hospital in the capital. He was 84.

Rashed Mamun Apu, general secretary of Actors’ Equity Bangladesh, confirmed the matter.
“He was a respected member of Actors’ Equity Bangladesh and our beloved colleague. Stage veteran Ataur Rahman passed away a short while ago at a hospital in the capital. We pay our respects to his departed soul,” he said.

Sources said Ataur Rahman’s body will be taken to the Central Shaheed Minar on Tuesday afternoon and kept there from 3:00pm to 4:00pm for people to pay their last respects.

Before that, his funeral prayer will be held after Zuhr prayers at the ground in front of his residence at Ispahani Century Arcade in Moghbazar. He will later be laid to rest at the Banani graveyard.

Family sources said Ataur Rahman’s condition deteriorated after he fell at his house last Friday. He was first taken to a hospital in Gulshan, where doctors said he required ICU support.

As the hospital did not have ICU facilities available at the time, he was later shifted to Popular Hospital in Dhanmondi. Ataur Rahman was a multifaceted cultural personality – an actor, theatre director and writer. Born on June 18, 1941, in Noakhali, he was regarded as one of the pioneers of the post-independence theatre movement in Bangladesh.

Among the stage plays directed by Ataur Rahman were Shajahan by Dwijendralal Roy, Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, Bury the Dead by Irwin Shaw, Galileo by Bertolt Brecht and Raktakarabi by Rabindranath Tagore.

He received numerous awards and honours, including the Independence Award, Ekushey Padak and Shaheed Munier Chowdhury Award.