Fourth victim of Shahbagh bus torching dies
Family members of Masuma Akter, 30, in tears inside the ambulance carrying her body at Anjuman Mofidul Islam in Kakrail after she died of her injuries at a Dhaka hospital yesterday. Senior officer of Rupali Bank Masuma, was in the bus pickets torched near Shishu Park on November 28. Photo: Palash Khan
The motifs of henna in her hands had barely disappeared when she lost her life to mindless political violence.
Masuma Akter died around 11:00am at Dhaka Burn Clinic and Diagnostic Hospital yesterday, 13 days after suffering severe burns in an arson attack on a bus in Shahbagh.
Masuma, 30, who was a senior officer at the Shyambazar branch of Rupali Bank, had got married only five and a half months ago.
She was buried at her parental home in Narsingdi yesterday, said her family.
Masuma is the fourth victim to die from the arson attack. She had 40 percent of her body burnt. The other deceased are Robin, who worked at a sweater factory, his cousin Nahid Morol and Dhaka College student Ohidur Rahman Babu.
The three had died at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Masuma’s family said she was sitting near the driver when blockaders set fire to the Bihanga Paribahan bus near Shishu Park on November 28 during an opposition-called blockade.
At least 15 other passengers sustained burn injuries.
Masuma was shifted to the clinic from DMCH on December 1.
Masuma Akter
With the respiratory organs damaged from the burns, she was on life-support for the last few days, her husband Mahbub-ur-Rahman, a private university teacher, told The Daily Star.
“We had so many dreams and so many plans,” he said, choking with grief. “Yesterday morning, when I was at her bedside, she wanted to tell me something, but all she could do is mutter unintelligibly.”
“I gave her a pen and paper. And she tried to write something, her hand trembling.”
Her sister said Masuma tossed about restlessly in the last few days. “She wanted to return home as soon as possible. Now she has returned home, but in a way we never expected,” she said.
“She was not involved in politics. What was her fault then, for which she had to die so painfully?”
Meanwhile, the arson victims at the DMCH burn unit passed another day yesterday, with none of them improving significantly.
One of the victims, bus helper Mohammad Alamgir, 25, had sustained burn injuries at Mawa in Munshiganj early Saturday.
“I don’t remember exactly how I escaped from the bus. I only remember that something terrible was happening and that I was going to die. My only thought was how to get out of the bus,” he recalled. “When I made it out of the bus, it was engulfed in flames.”
Alamgir was sleeping behind the driver’s seat in the parked bus when it came under attack.
Source: The Daily Star
