Veteran politician, freedom fighter and Awami League advisory council member Tofail Ahmed was laid to rest with state honours in Bhola on Tuesday.

He was buried in his family graveyard in Koralia village in Bhola, beside the graves of his parents and wife, after his third namaz-e-janaza at about 3:30pm.

His second namaz-e-janaza was held at Bhola Government High School ground at about 2:15pm. Before the namaz-e-janaza, a state guard of honours was accorded to him by a police contingent there.

After the namaz-ejanaza, his body, draped in the national flag, was taken from Bhola town to his ancestral home for his burial.

Security measures remained heightened throughout the procession from Bhola town to the veteran Awami League leader’s village home, with law enforcement maintaining a visible presence.

His first namaz-e-janaza was held on Monday evening outside Takwa Mosque in the capital’s Dhanmondi area.

Tensions surfaced ahead of the namaz-e-janaza at Bhola Government High School, where activists of the student and youth wings of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party gathered and began to stage protests against the Chhatra League and Juba League, the student and youth wings of the Awami League.

Local BNP leaders later intervened to disperse them from there.

Senior political figures, freedom fighters, and members of various professions attended the namaz-e-janaza at Bhola Government High School. They include the leaders from the district BNP and representatives from the local unit of the Awami League.

Tofail Ahmed died while undergoing treatment at Square Hospital in Dhaka on Monday afternoon.

Tofail, a student leader of the Pakistan era and a prominent freedom fighter, had been suffering from prolonged illness and multiple age-related complications. He was earlier admitted to the Square Hospital with pneumonia-related respiratory distress, heart disease, and physical weakness.

Throughout his political career, Tofail Ahmed was elected lawmaker nine times — first to Pakistan’s National Assembly in 1970 and later to the Jatiya Sangsad of Bangladesh in 1973, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2008, 2014, 2018 and 2024.

He was elected a presidium member of the Awami League in 1992 and served in the position for 18 years.

In 2010, he became a member of the party’s advisory council.

Tofail Ahmed served as minister for commerce and industries from June 1996 to December 1999, and later continued as industries minister until 2001.

From January 2014 to December 2018, Tofail served as commerce minister.

Born to Azhar Ali and Fatema Khanam on October 22, 1943 at Koralia village under South Digholdi Union in Bhola district, Tofail Ahmed married Anwara Begum in 1964.

Tofail Ahmed played an active role in the 1966 Six-Point Movement for autonomy of East Pakistan, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and took part in the 1969 mass uprising as a student leader.

He served as the vice-president of the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union – DUCSU -- from 1967 to 1969.

In 1969, Tofail was elected president of the Bangladesh Chhatra League and he joined the Awami League on June 2, 1970.