Grandmaster Ziaur Rahman passed away after suffering a heart attack while competing in the 12th round match of the National Chess Championship in Dhaka Friday July 5th 2024. He was 50.
Ziaur was competing against fellow GM Enamul Hossain Razib at the Chess Federation hall room.
He felt uncomfortable from the start of the game at 3pm at the hall room in Paltan.
At one stage, he fell to the ground at around 6pm.
Fellow chess players and officials then rushed him to the Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital in Shahbag, where the doctors soon declared him dead.
“Suddenly he (Ziaur) tilted from his seat. We immediately took him to the nearby hospital (Ibrahim Cardiac Hospital) where he was pronounced dead,” an emotional Razib told Dhaka Tribune.
The country’s star chess player left behind his wife and a son.
He holds the highest FIDE rating ever achieved by a Bangladeshi player (2570 in October 2005).
Ziaur passed his SSC from Government Laboratory High School. He later graduated from the University of Dhaka.
In 2021, he won the Mujib Borsho Invitational at Dhaka with a score of 7.5/9.