Toufique Imrose Khalidi, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of bdnews24.com and a pioneer of digital journalism in Bangladesh, passed away at a hospital in London on Friday. He was 59.
Khalidi suffered a brain haemorrhage while on a personal visit to London and was admitted to St Bartholomew's Hospital on Thursday night. Doctors pronounced him dead at 2:23pm local time on Friday, according to the news portal.
Born on June 14, 1967, Khalidi earned his master's degree in English Literature from Dhaka University before embarking on a career in journalism in 1989 with The Sunday Express.
Over a career spanning more than three decades, Khalidi held key positions across national and international media. He worked at the BBC World Service in London from February 2000 to June 2005. Prior to that, he served at The Daily Star as Joint News Editor and Weekend Edition News Editor (1998–2000), Business Editor (1997–1998), and Diplomatic Correspondent (1991–1993), as well as Assistant Editor and Senior Correspondent at The Financial Express.
In the first half of 2005, Khalidi associated with bdnews24.com, pioneering Bangladesh's first internet-based 24/7 news service.
Internationally recognized, Khalidi received fellowships from the Journalists in Europe Foundation in Paris and the Japan Foreign Press Centre. In 2014, he was named one of the "14 leading digital media innovators" across Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and West Asia at the South-to-South Media Dialogue in South Africa.
Khalidi chaired a UNESCO World Press Freedom Day event in 2016, attended the 2009 UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen as an observer, participated in the Global Media Forum in Bonn (2010, 2016, 2017, 2019), and spoke as a panelist at Harvard University’s "Bangladesh Rising" conference in 2018.
He also played a vital role in national policy formulation, serving on national committees for online media policy (2012, 2015), the news agency policy committee (2008), and the national task force for Dhaka river protection (2007). In December 2017, the Bangladesh government conferred a special award on him on National ICT Day.
Veteran journalist Sabir Mustafa, in a tribute, described Khalidi as a “brilliant journalist” with a strong ability to develop sources, recalling their professional association at The Daily Star and The Financial Express in Dhaka in the early and mid-1990s, and later at BBC Bangla in London.
He recalled Khalidi’s contribution to journalism, saying he took over bdnews24.com two decades ago and transformed it into what he described as “the country’s top news portal.”
Mustafa said he met Khalidi again at his home near Banani in August this year after many years, unaware that it would be their final meeting.
“I met up with him after many years in August this year at his home near Banani, not knowing that would be our last meeting,” he said.