Lovely at DMCH.
Her life had to change its course for the worse twelve years ago because of a spoiled son of a local influential in the capital’s Jurain. The man, who forced her to marry him, back then set her on fire yesterday to kill her.
Manik Chand has become this cruel to the woman he once wanted to own by any means, just because her family failed to give him money to buy drugs.
With 53% burns to her body, Lovely Akhter, 25, is now struggling for life at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
The chances of her survival are very little because of the nature of her injuries, which have spread mostly over her neck and chest, doctors said.
Yet a grieving father, Mohammad Helal Khan, clings to the hope that she will live. At the hospital, he was asking whoever approached him to pray for his daughter.
He has filed a case with Kadamtali Police Station, accusing Manik of attempted murder.
Lovely’s marriage of twelve years threatened her with death when her addict-husband doused her with kerosene in the early hours yesterday and set her ablaze.
She woke up screaming in pain in the middle of the night and discovered that Manik was sitting beside her and watching her burn, her mother Laiju Begum quoted her.
Lovely ran out of the room. Other members of the household woke up to her screams and put out the fire. But by that time damage was already done.
Her in-laws rushed her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, said Laiju, who reached the hospital with her husband around 3:30am, an hour after being informed of the incident by Lovely’s brother-in-law.
“Manik began abusing her four years ago. He was getting hooked on drugs, mainly Yaba, then. In two years’ time, he had immersed himself in drugs,” Laiju told The Daily Star.
He used to beat her every night, asking her “to bring money from us,” she added.
“But I am a poor man,” said the father, Helal, who works at a battery shop and earns only Tk 7,000 a month.
“I could not pay for my son-in-law’s addiction, and so I could not save my daughter.”
Manik had good earnings but that was not enough for paying for the drugs he took every day, Helal said.
He added Manik’s family had a real estate business. They illegally built houses on government land, which brought in around Tk 60,000 a month. Manik used to get a share of that, which amounted to Tk 15,000.
Twenty days ago, Lovely along with their two children, aged 2 and 6, was thrown out of the house, said Laiju.
The three had taken refuge at Lovely’s parental home.
However, five days ago, Manik came and forcibly wanted to take the children back. Lovely had no option but to go along with them, fearing for her children’s safety, Laiju said.
She then told her mother, “This is the last chance I am giving him. If he abuses me again, I will surely leave him and come back and stay with you”.
“She has come back indeed…but she will probably not be staying with us for long,” the mother choked.
On the fateful night, just before Lovely drifted off to sleep, Manik told her that he had brought her back to kill her, Laiju said, quoting her daughter as saying at the hospital.
“He told my daughter, ‘This is your last night’”.
Looking back at how Manik had taken their daughter away, Laiju said her daughter had to give up everything for the man. She even could not continue with her studies after class-VII.
Lovely was abducted by him when she was only 13, and forced to marry him.
On the day of the Bangla New Year, my daughter had gone out with one of her friends. She was kidnapped. “Despite our reluctance to accept the marriage, we came to terms with it, thinking that the abduction and marriage had ruined her image for ever, and would make it difficult for her to marry someone else,” said Laiju.
Her father said they had no choice but to accept it. “Manik comes from a very influential family in Jurain. Everyone is scared of him and his father Alek Chand.
“We were afraid too,” Helal said.
Manik has gone into hiding and neither of his family members could be reached immediately.
Source: The Daily Star
