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Separated by death

Staff Correspondent
Afroz understands his loss. He knows his grandfather will not come any more with chocolates for him.
"Grandpa has died. I have watched his death on television. He would not come back," said Afroz, six-year-old grandson of Rafiqul Islam, 75, a city Awami League (AL) leader at their Sepahi Bagh house.
Rafiqul was one of the 18 people who died on Saturday at a series of near-simultaneous grenade attacks on an AL rally in front of its Bangabandhu Avenue headquarters that also left over 200 people injured.
The five sons and three daughters of Rafiqul, popularly known as 'Ada Chacha' among AL workers for free distribution of homemade dry ginger among fellow party men, were anxiously waiting to receive his body.
Mahbuba Begum, daughter of Rafiqul, said her father was a devoted leader of the AL and loved to say that he had developed 'an
addiction' for the party's processions and rallies.
"My father had a wish to die before his party President Sheikh Hasina as he would say he would not survive her loss. His wish has been fulfilled," said Mahbuba, as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Rafiqul told his family before leaving that he would not return home for launch. "But we did not know that it would be his last talk with us," said Mahbuba, demanding a proper probe and punishment to the bombers.
Fish vender Mohammed Hanif, 60, slipped from his house to attend the rally to escape family pressure not to attend any political programme at the advanced age.
An activist of Sramik League, the workers front of the AL, Hanif left home never to return alive again.
"My father was aged and we did not want him join political rallies in recent days. But he used to join every rally of the party slipping from the house," said Delwar, 22, son of Hanif.
Hanif was the key earner of his nine-member, poverty-stricken family that lives in a shanty in Manik Nagar and the family does not know how to scrape through the trying time without him.
Piyara Begum, wife of Hanif, stared vacantly at the sky, sitting in front of his 10 feet by 10 feet small room.
Hasina Momtaz, a leader of city Women AL, joined the rally along with her husband Bashir Ahmed, convenor of the Jubo League.
They were together from the moment of leaving their Balughat house to listening to the frontline party leaders, including Hasina. But a wave of explosions separated them forever.
Bashir cried in front of the DMCH morgue along with hundreds of others who lost their loved ones like him.
"Just three minutes before the explosion, she wanted to drink water and I went to bring it," Bashir said.
"A sudden explosion rocked
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the entire area, followed by a series of others. A frantic run for cover took me to a safer place. I called her by the mobile phone several times, but she did not reply."
At about 7:00pm, Bashir came to know that she was wounded and immidiately rushed to the DMCH.
"She could not tell me anything," Bashir said. "Her voice stopped long ago."
Mostaq Ahmed Sentu, 35, a central leader of Bangladesh Chhatra League, student front of the AL, died in his brash bid to save people at the heart of horror.
Mostafa Amin Imran, his close associate, told The Daily Star at the morgue that when the grenades continued to fall, he tried to guide people to safety.
"Finding a grenade hurtling through the air towards them, he pulled a boy by his hand and pushed him aside. The boy escaped death, but he himself could not," Mostafa said.
Scrums of relatives of the dead were grieving near the DMCH morgue for the bodies as the administration did not allow anybody to get close to it or take the bodies of their loved ones.