Shawdesh Desk:

Former mayor of undivided Dhaka City Corporatio Sadeque Hossain Khoka has passed away at a hospital in New York. He was 67.

Khoka, a vice chairman of BNP, breathed his last at the New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at around 2:20pm (Bangladesh time) on Monday.

BNP chairperson’s media wing member Sayrul Kabir Khan confirmed the news.

The valiant freedom fighter had been suffering from lung cancer for last couple of year.

Khoka stepped into politics through joining Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani’s National Awami Party (NAP).

Later, he joined BNP, and was made party’s Dhaka city unit president.

Khoka was first elected MP in 1991 from Sutrapur-Kotwali seat and was subsequently made State Minister for Youth and Sports.

He was elected MP from the same seat in 2001 and given the charge of the Minister of Fisheries and Livestock.

Later, he contested Dhaka City Corporation election in 2002 and was elected mayor. He held the post for nearly nine years.

Khoka, who also served as a fisheries and livestock minister, was arrested days before the January-5 national election in 2014.

Released on bail from jail, he was admitted to Birdem Hospital in the capital, but doctors could not exactly detect his health problem.

Later, he went to the US on May 14, 2014 and has been receiving treatment there since then.