DHAKA: Ekushey Padak winning child litterateur Ekhlasuddin Ahmed, also a Bangla Academy fellow, passed away at Squire Hospital in city early Wednesday. He was 74.

He had been undergoing treatment due to brain hemorrhage for one and a half months and breathed his last at 4:25am, said the hospital sources.

His body was kept at the Bangla Academy premises so that people from all walks of like could pay tributes to the litterateur.

Director General Shamsuzzaman Khan along with other officials Bangla Academy paid their tributes to Ekhlasuddin Ahmed.

He was the editor of a popular journal for youth during 1960’s ‘Tapur Tupur’.

Ekhlasuddin was born in 1940 in the 24 Parganas district of West Bengal province of the then British India. He was also a journalist and had been associated with the Daily Janakantha.

Ekhlasuddin won the ‘Ekushey Padak’, one of the highest civilian awards in the country in 2000.

Among the other awards, Ekhlasuddin received the ‘Kabir Chowdhury Children’s Literary Award’ of Bangla Academy (2004), Uro Child Literature Award (2007), Alaol Literary Award, Ekushey Award and Shishu Academy Award.

BDST: 1630 HRS, DEC 24, 2014