zero zone

Monir loses the battle

Star Online Report

The 14-year-old school boy Monir, who sustained burn injuries when pickets set fire to his father’s covered van on Dhaka-Gazipur highway in Gazipur on the first day of the opposition’s 60-hour hartal, succumbed to his injuries early today.
Monir who sustained 95 percent burn injuries breathed his last around 4:30am at the intensive care unit of Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, doctor Samanto Lal Sen, who examined Monir at the burn unit, told The Daily Star.
Monir, who was elder of the two sons of Ramjan, had begged to his father, a covered van driver from Gazipur, to bring him to Dhaka and the father and son were on their way back when the arson took place on the highway on the fateful day Monday.
“This was his first time in the city,” said Ramjan Ali, the father.
Responding to Monir’s request, Ramjan had come to the capital along with his son for business on Saturday little knowing it that this one will be his final trip.
“It was 9:00am, and we were just a few kilometres away from home. Sensing trouble ahead, I parked my van and asked Monir to wait inside. I went out to check if it was safe to drive on,” the father told The Daily Star earlier.
The father then witnessed the dreadful incident of his life as the pickets set blaze to his van hurling a petrol bomb caring little that Monir was inside the lorry.
Locals and police pulled out the burning child and doused him with water. He was first whisked off to Tongi Hospital and then to DMCH.
Immediately after the incident, Ramjan did not tell his wife about their son’s fate though the DMCH sources said there was little hope for Monir’s survival.
But none had the heart to tell Ramjan that he should call his wife immediately if she were to see her son alive for one last time.
The ill-fated mother had previously lost two daughters, one in a road accident and the other during infancy.
Finally, Monir’s mother came to see him at the hospital last night. She screamed and fainted at the sight of him. She could not be revived for an hour and a half, but when she regained consciousness, she cried out for justice, family sources said earlier.
The mental state of the parents who had witnessed their son with entire body swollen and blackened beyond recognition and drifted in and out of consciousness at the hospital were not known immediately after the death of Monir.