Rest in peace my friend!!
Shafiqul Alam ১৬ মার্চ ২০২১, মঙ্গলবার, ১:৫৫ স্মরণীয়
When he left The Independent and joined the Financial Express in the mid 2000s, he was already an established writer. AZM Anas Russel was then just in his early 30s. It took him only a few months to become the best reporter in the FE. He was a poet of journalism whose sentences would read like rhymes. But then came the bad news that he was suffering from a rare heart conditions, which forced him to seek treatment abroad and set up pacemakers in his chest.
The failing heart beat slowed down his pace and put him in constant touch with doctors. But Anas was undaunted. He spread his wings and started writing some of the best stories on Bangladesh for top global news outlets including Nikkei, the Japanese news agency. He would contribute to some of the finest trade magazines and websites and wrote for the UN's news agency, the New Humanitarian. in 2019, he got the highest accolade ever won by a Bangladeshi journalist from the UN.
At the FE, he was its Economic Editor and has trained reporters on the art of writing development stories. He became its finest copy editor and a benchmark for all other journalists. His work, meanwhile, made him the darling of the diplomats, top economists, policy makers, charity chiefs, rights activists and the UN agencies. He saw things that many other had never seen before. He would always find a great angle even on an ordinary development.
The Coronavirus pandemic took a toll on his health. At the advice of doctors, he confined himself in his room for months. He told me his two children were happy to find dad all the time at home. But his young wife was worried. Only in the past few weeks he started going back to the work. He took vaccine and I fear that the vaccine might have triggered the heart attack.
Anas was a very good friend of mine, whose work brought joy to us and expanded our journalistic horizon. Rest in peace my friend!!
Shafiqul Alam : bureau chief, AFP Bangladesh
