Ruksana Bano

Career and death

Bano was known as a popular Sambalpuri singer whose work belonged to western Odisha's folk music scene, and commentators described her early death as cutting short a promising career. In late August 2024 she fell ill while shooting a music video in Balangir. She was admitted to a hospital in Bhawanipatna on 27 August and then moved successively to Bhima Bhoi Medical College and Hospital in Balangir, a private hospital in Bargarh and finally AIIMS Bhubaneswar, where hospital sources said she was being treated for scrub typhus.

She died at AIIMS Bhubaneswar on the night of Wednesday, 18 September 2024, aged 27. Her death was later recalled in reporting on a series of young Odisha singers who died in quick succession.