A bullet pierced him through in the right eye as he peeped out from behind a pillar in an alley at Jatrabari in Dhaka to see what was going around in the afternoon on July 20.
It was the law enforcers in a clash with student protesters out on the road in the neighbourhood of Rayerbagh. The 18-year-old Abdur Rahman Jisan fell down on the ground.
People standing by had taken him to a nearby hospital before he was sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. By the time his mother, Jesmin, reached there about 9:00pm, Abdur Rahman had died.
Abdur Rahman, her mother said weeping, used to supply water to shops in the neighbourhood. He went out there on the street after the day鈥檚 delivery.
The death left his widow, whom he had married in 2023 after courtship, severely traumatised. And, she took her own life nine days later. The 17-year-old Mishty hanged herself from the ceiling fan at her parents鈥� in the same neighbourhood on July 29.
鈥楳ishty stopped eating and cried all along, holding tight Jisan鈥檚 clothes. We always kept an eye on her. We feared that something bad might happen. It finally did. There was none in the house when she committed suicide,鈥� Babul Sardar, Jisan鈥檚 father who is an expatriate in South Sudan, said on July 31.
鈥榃ho will we seek justice from? We鈥檒l get justice on the Judgement Day,鈥� Jesmin wailed. Jisan stopped going to school after Class V, Jesmin said. He was not involved in politics.
Babul Sardar鈥檚 flight had been cancelled three times amidst the countrywide internet shutdown before he could finally get back home about 3:30pm on July 22, to bury Jisan in the Matuail graveyard.
Babul Sardar, who has worked as a lathe operator and welder in South Sudan for about eight years now, said, 鈥業 earn the country remittances. And, the country gave me my son dead in return.鈥�
鈥業 work in deep forests in South Sudan. I am not afraid there. But I am now afraid of stepping outside my home in my own country,鈥� Babul said in an anguished voice.
The family 鈥� Jisan, his wife, elder sister and parents 鈥� has let the owner of the house know that they would leave. 鈥榃e cannot live here with the memories that haunt us day and night,鈥� Babul said.
Attacks on the student protests by ruling party people and law enforcement units and the violence that broke out left at least 214 people dead in July 16鈥�31 in Dhaka and elsewhere.
