Minara Begum weeps and asks what kind of politics it is that killed her son.
Monir Hossain, a lad in his early teens, died of burns after strikers enforcing a shutdown set alight his father’s van in which he was travelling on a Dhaka street Nov 4 morning.
His father had parked the vehicle for a brief while, stepping out see if could proceed any further, while Monir sat inside.
And before father and son got a hint of what was coming, a group of men came marching up and set the van on fire.
Monir, unable to get out, sat trapped in that blazing vehicle till his father rushed back to extricate him from the inferno.
But, by then, Monir had suffered far too much burns. Doctors at the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) burn unit said it was over 90 percent, leaving little hope of the child’s survival.
Monir died before daybreak on Thursday.
Inconsolable Minara Begum is unable to fathom why this should have happened to her when she and politics have always been poles apart.
“We don’t understand politics, neither do we take part in it. Why then was my son made a victim of hartal (strike) brutality?”
She says she is unable to reconcile the ways of the politicians, who say whatever they do – including the shutdowns – is for the sake of the people and yet make them suffer by their actions.
And, surrounded by relatives and friends at her Kaliakoir home, Minara weeps as long as she is in her senses.
Neighbours and sympathisers, giving the shattered family the strength to bear the loss, are angry, demanding the immediate arrest and trial of the killers.
Monir was sleeping in the covered van his father, Ramjan Ali, drove and parked before a law college near Chandana intersections around 10am on Nov 4, the day the BNP-led 18-party alliance’s countrywide 60-hour strike began.
The strikers had set the van on fire probably by spraying petrol, a pattern repeated elsewhere, too, during the strike.
Monir fought for his life the next three days at DMCH before succumbing to his wounds early on Thursday morning, at around 4:45am.
The death had brought politicians to rushing to the hospital. The AL MP AKM Mozammel Hoque and Minor’s local Union Parishad Chairman Saifuzzaman went to console the family.
Monir’s body reached home at Borokanchonpur at 3pm. He was buried in the afternoon.
Source: Bd news24
