14 August 2004	Saturday	27 Jamadi-us-Saani 1425

DHAKA, Aug 13: Bangladesh's maverick writer Humayun Azad, who survived a deadly attack in February this year, was found dead in his apartment in Munich on Thursday.

Officials at the German embassy in Dhaka informed his family on Friday morning that police had found the 57-year-old Dhaka University teacher dead in his apartment after breaking open the door on Thursday morning.

Humayun, a professor of Bengali language who had authored more than 70 books, left Dhaka on Aug 7 on an invitation from the writers forum, PEN International, for research on the German writer, Heinrich Heine.

He was staying in an apartment on the Munich university campus. Prof Azad was found dead in his Munich apartment by a member of the German PEN Centre when he did not come to an appointment with the PEN member.

A doctor diagnosed his death. Doctors and police did not find any signs of an "unnatural death", the German charge de affaires in Dhaka, Herman Nicolai, said in a statement issued to the press on Friday, adding that "a post mortem will be carried out routinely".

But the family of the deceased found the death "mysterious". "The death is mysterious, said his younger brother Manzur Kabir adding that: "Fundamentalists have repeatedly threatened to kill him and selected a suitable place to execute their plan."

Humayun's wife Latifa Kohinoor, son Ananya Azad, and daughters Mouli Azad and Smita Azad questioned why the news had been conveyed to them two days after his death, and sought an "internationally-recognised autopsy" on his body.