Md Kamrul Islam came to be shot in the neck at Mirpur 10 on August 4 when he was carrying another person, wounded by a gunshot, during the uprising born out of the student protests that had continued since July 1.
After he had said the zuhr pryaers, Kamrul, who had an office in Mirpur 10, called his wife to tell her that he would return home after he would close the office soon. He did return, but dead.
Kamrul, a resident of Mirpur 11, told his wife to keep their two children indoors. There were gunshots outside.
The family repeatedly called Kamrul, aged 48, after he had not returned. An unnamed person finally answered a call about 3:30pm to say that Kamrul had been shot and taken to Al Helal Specialised Hospital.
The family rushed there only to know that he had been moved to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital. They looked for him in every bed at Suhrawardy, but he was not there either.
His eldest child, Alvi-Bin-Islam, asked his friends to look for his father in hospitals near by.
A friend of his finally found Kamrul in National Institute of Neurosciences and Hospital in the evening when the hospital staff were taking the body to the morgue.
鈥榃e didn鈥檛 expect to see him dead. We weren鈥檛 prepared,鈥� Alvi said.
The hospital did not want to hand over the body聽without police clearance and a post-mortem examination.
But Alvi could not reach the Mirpur police station for documents as gunshots were still being fired about 11:00pm.
He finally managed to convince the authorities to release the body. He was buried in their hometown of Faridpur the next morning.
Alvi was later told by witnesses that his father had been shot from behind when he picked up a boy named Emon, who fell down to the street after being shot, and started running towards an army camp by the Indoor Stadium.
After the death of Kamrul who was the sole breadwinner of the family, it is now Alvi to shoulder all the responsibilities.
鈥業 don鈥檛 know how I will manage. I am looking for a job,鈥� said Alvi, a third-year bachelor鈥檚 student in a private university.
Alvi could take over his father鈥檚 trde of cosmetics supply. But what Kamrul had 鈥� three mobiles, the money bag and the watch that Alvi gave him on his last birthday 鈥� were stolen that day.
鈥楢ll his business contacts were saved on the mobiles,鈥� Alvi said. The family is yet to get any financial help.
The student protests began seeking reforms in civil service job reservations and ended in the overthrow of the Awami League government on August 5.
The Directorate General of Health Services on September 24 said that after a preliminary investigation, it had listed 708 people having died in the protests and uprising.