It was around 9:15am yesterday.
SSC examinee Sakibul Islam along with his mother Farida Yeasmin was going to his exam centre at a school inside Dhaka Cantonment.
Amid heavy traffic, their bus was moving very slowly near Mohakhali, and Sakibul’s English First Paper test would begin in less than 45 minutes.
Worried sick, they got down and crossed the road to take another vehicle.
Even though Sakibul, a student of Banani Bidyaniketan School and College, could get onto a moving bus, his mother could not. Sticking his head out a window, he told his mother to take another bus to go to the centre.
Minutes later, Farida managed to get one.
After Sakibul’s bus moved a few yards ahead, he again stuck his neck out a window, probably to see where his mother was.
Unfortunately, his head got stuck between the window and a roadside lamppost. This left parts of his head crushed, leaving him critically injured.
Pedestrians rushed him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he was declared dead around 10:30am.
While crossing the spot in her bus, the mother did see a small crowd but what happened there was beyond her wildest dreams. So, she moved on.
She learnt about it after reaching the school.
“This would have never happened if I had been with him. My son had stuck his head out probably to see me,” Farida wailed at her home in Dakkhin Badda area.
“Ma, take a Balaka Paribahan bus to go to the hall” — were his last words to his mother, who kept repeating them.
Talking to The Daily Star, witness Shagor Ahmed Bhuiyan, owner of a hardware store, said, “Hearing a sound, I turned around and saw a boy’s head stuck between a bus and a lamppost”.
“Brother, please save me” — the boy said.
“His head got crushed as the bus moved ahead after remaining stuck in the jam. It could have been averted if the driver had driven a little back,” he said, adding that many pedestrians had shouted and tried to draw the driver’s attention in vain.
The driver fled immediately after the incident. Police seized the bus.
The tragic death of Sakibul, who was third in his class, has shocked everyone who knew him.
The lamppost in question is a bit closer to the street compared to the others.
Sakibul had got GPA-5 in his Junior School Certificate examination. After being promoted to class-IX, he stopped playing games so that his studies were not hampered, said his father Zahangir Alam, who runs a store near their home.
Often, Sakibul used to tell his elder brother Rakibul Islam, a student at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet), that one day he would become a chartered accountant and work at a renowned institution.
As requested, his body was handed over to the family without an autopsy. Later, it was buried at their home town in Fatullah of Narayanganj.
Zahangir filed a case against the driver with Banani Police Station.
Source: The Daily Star
