Women read aloud from the Gita and the Quran at Ghani Khan?s Kotwali residence. Picture by Surajit Roy

Malda, April 14: Barkatda is no more.

That seemed to be the refrain across the town today as people from all walks of life ? from A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhury?s cook to his closest aide and the common Congress worker ? tried to grapple with the fact that the 79-year-old MP was dead.

For Masidur Rehman, the co-president of the Malda district Congress and eight-time election agent of Ghani Khan, life has almost come to a standstill. ?Malda without Barkatda? We cannot believe that the guardian of the district is no longer among us. I always considered myself to be his party worker rather than that of the Congress. What will become of me now??

Rehman along with other leaders had first thronged the party office at Hayat Bhavan and then joined mourners at Ghani Khan?s residence in Kotwali, 7 km from here.

For a district where politics centred around the MP, the news of his death has descended like a shroud. The streets were deserted as people rushed indoors to watch a Bengali television channel airing the news. ?I want to know when his body will arrive here so that I can go and pay my respects to the man who was known as the architect of Malda,? said Subir Chowdhury, a retired railway employee.

In Kotwali, a large crowd had gathered to find out when the funeral will take place and where the body will be buried.

Wailing in one corner of his huge residence was Mohammad Rakib, Ghani Khan?s cook for over 40 years.

?I am now an orphan, now that my sahib has gone. He had a charismatic character. I had to cook both mutton and chicken for lunch and dinner for him. For the last two months, however, he had given up on chicken because of the bird flu scare,? said Rakib.

District Congress leaders like Samit Chatterjee, Hasan Ali Shah, Mohammad Syed and others were also at Kotwali, planning for tomorrow.

?The helicopter will land with the body at the police lines at 8 am. From there, it will be taken to Town Hall and then to Kotwali where he will be laid to rest at the family burial grounds at the Jame Masjid, near his residence,? Chatterjee said.

Additional superintendent of police Debashis Boral said a large number of policemen would be deployed along the route through which his body will be brought.

The CPM, in the meantime, has decided not to carry out any election campaign today and tomorrow.

?We might have had political differences, but he was a man who worked for the district and the state,? said CPM district secretary Jibon Moitra.