By Syed Altefat Hossain

Eighteen-year-old Md Bijoy, an eighth grader at Dholaipar High School, had emerged as a ray of hope for his mother Sahida (42) as her teenage son will aboard for overseas job to bring solvency in their family.

But the fate did not favor Bijoy as he succumbed to a gunshot wound on August 23, fourteen days after being struck by a bullet in front of Jatrabari Police Station when he joined the victory procession following the downfall of autocratic ruler Sheikh Hasina.

His family members said a bullet penetrated besides the right ear exited through the left side with brain when he was celebrating the ouster of the nearly 16-year fascist regime in face of the student-people uprising on August 5 last year.

Bijoy’s grief-stricken mother Sahida, who works as a domestic help at a police officer’s residence in the city, burst into tears while this correspondent approached her for some words about her martyred son at their rented house at Kutubkhali area of Jatrabari in the city.

“My son used to tell me ‘Maa, you work hard. I will not let you work anymore. Please, help me to get a passport to go abroad . . . I will make you happy’,” she said in a sobbing tone.

Sahida said her younger son, Bijoy, left the house around 4.30pm taking Taka 50 from her elder brother, Md Hridoy Hossain, to join the victory procession along with hundreds of thousands of people in the city’s Jatrabari area after autocratic ruler Sheikh Hasina fled the country.

But, she recalled, around 9pm some student came to their house and informed them that Bijoy was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) as he was hit by a bullet on his head around 6pm.

“Immediately, we went to the Dhaka Medical and found Bijoy undergoing treatment at the ICU. My son was undergoing treatment there until he breathed his last in the late afternoon on August 23,” weeping Sahida said, recounting that Bijoy didn’t open his eyes until his death since he received the bullet injury.

“My son, who showed me the dream of changing our fate, could not say anything before his death,” she lamented.

Md Hridoy Hossain, a second honors student at Dhaka City College, said they didn’t know whether his younger brother, Bijoy, went to the anti-discrimination student movement regularly.

But on August 5, he went to celebrate the success of the movement that turned into a student-people uprising from July 17 with the participation of people from all strata. But he never returned.

A video of August 5 that went viral on social media showed police were coming out from Jatrabari Police Station in troops, hunting down the protesters on the street and shooting them like birds while eyewitnesses said they saw many corpses lying here and there across Jatrabari street on that day.

“After my brother breathed his last on August 23, we received the body on the same day without performing a postmortem and laid him to his eternal at the Jurain graveyard in the city on the same night,” grieving Hridoy said.

He said Bijoy was the youngest among their three siblings while their only elder sister Tahmina Akter Dola is a married woman. Their father Md Dulal Mia is a CNG-run auto rickshaw driver.

Hridoy said they were seeing dreams centering Bijoy as he was meritorious and attentive in his study.

The family hailing from Wazirpur Upazila of Barishal district was observed living in a single-room in a damped environment.

“I am still unemployed. I could not contribute to the family,” Hridoy said, adding, they got Taka 5 lakh July Shaheed Smrity Foundation that helped them to run the family.
The family calls for a trial to hold the perpetrators of the autocratic government for the loss of Bijoy.

Sahida demanded capital punishment for those responsible for killing her son.