Bangladeshi film-maker Tareque Masud dies in car crash

55-year-old director of Muktir Gaan and Matir Moina was one of Bangladesh’s most prominent and celebrated film-makers One of Bangladesh’s most prominent and celebrated film-makers died on Saturday when the car in which he was travelling collided head-on with a speeding bus outside Dhaka. Tareque Masud died along with Ashfaque Munier Mishuk, the head of a local television channel, and three other people. Masud’s American-born wife and producer, Catherine Masud, and the Bangladeshi painter Dhali Al Mamun are in a serious condition in hospital. Masud, 55, rose to prominence with the films Muktir Gaan in 1995 and Matir Moina in 2002, the latter of which is based on Masud’s experiences as a madrassa student during Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971. The film won a Fipresci prize at the 2002 Cannes film festival and was the first Bangladeshi film to compete for the best foreign-language film award a the Oscars. Mishuk, 52, was an eminent cinematographer and journalist who had worked for BBC World, Discovery Channel and National Geographic. Thousands of people gathered at the Central Shaheed Minar monument in Dhaka on Sunday to pay their respects. The education minister, Nurul Islam Nahid, said: “It is a very unfortunate incident for us. Masud through his movies had given a new dimension to liberation war. Mishuk was an immensely talented journalist. It is a national loss.” Professor Mazharul Hoque, a road safety expert at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said Bangladesh had one of the worst crash rates in the world, at more than 60 per 10,000 registered motor vehicles. The official death toll for road traffic accidents is about 4,000 a year, but independent research funded by agencies such as Britain’s Department for International Development have put the figure twice as high. Activists blame shoddy roads, poorly maintained vehicles and reckless drivers. Last month 43 schoolchildren died near the port city of Chittagong when the truck taking them home from a football match overturned. Bangladesh Road transport guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 14, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.