Ex-student leader of Hasina party dies while fleeing to India

A leader of the students' wing of Bangladesh's deposed prime minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League party died of a heart attack while attempting to flee to India, a media report said on Sunday.

Ishak Ali Khan Panna, the former general secretary of the Chhatra League, died on Saturday morning, The Dhaka Tribune newspaper reported.

Panna's nephew Laikuzzaman Talukder Mintoo, the Chirapara Par Satoria Union Parishad and organising secretary of the Kaukhali upazila Awami League, said that his uncle slipped from a hill in Shillong in Meghalaya, leading to a heart attack, according to the report.

Another relative, Jasim Uddin Khan, said he had spoken to Panna on the phone three days earlier.

Khan said he learned that Panna had entered India through the Tamabil border in Sylhet, where he died.

During his escape attempt, Panna was accompanied by a leader from the central committee of the Awami League and a leader of the Jhalakathi Chhatra League, the newspaper said, quoting sources.

Panna was elected the general secretary of the Chhatra League in the 1994 central council and became a member of the central sub-committee of the Awami League after the 2012 council, the paper said.

Most leaders of the Awami League have gone into hiding since Hasina's resignation.

Bangladesh witnessed chaos after Hasina's government collapsed.

She resigned and fled to India amid violent protests over quota reforms for government jobs, while the Army stepped in to fill the power vacuum on August 5.