NZ gun attack: Family still not confirmed about Samad’s death

The family members of Abdus Samad, who is one of the expatriates thought to be dead in the terror attack in a New Zealand mosque, said this morning that they were still not confirmed, he is among the dead.

Abdus Samad’s brother ATM Shamsuddin said he talked to his sister-in-law (Samad’s wife) over phone this morning and she said Samad’s name was not in the list of the injured people, our Kurigram correspondent reports after talking to Shamsuddin.

Dr Abdus Samad. Photo: Collected

A list of those died in the shooting will be published in the afternoon by the New Zealand authorities, Shamsuddin said quoting his sister-in-law.

The family hope that Samad’s name would not be on that list either, the brother said,

Abdus Samad, a former teacher of Bangladesh Agricultural University in Mymensingh, had been living in Christchurch for about 20 years.

Various news portals yesterday ran reports which said Abdus Samad and his wife both died in the attack. However, their son Toaha confirmed to The Daily Star last night that his mother did not go to the mosque. But his father still remains missing.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh Honorary Consul Shafiqur Rahman Bhuiyan told UNB in the afternoon that five Bangladeshis had been "missing" and named them as Dr Abdus Samad, Hosne Ara, Mozammel, Omar Faruk, and Zakaria.

A "right-wing extremist" and white supremacist armed with semi-automatic weapons rampaged through two mosques in the quiet New Zealand city of Christchurch during Friday prayers, killing 49 worshippers and wounding dozens more.