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AUG 21 CARNAGE

Baby boy living with false hope

BISHAWJIT DAS
Three-year-old Al-Amin still believes his father, Abul Kalam Azad, one of the 22 killed in the August 21 carnage, is undergoing treatment at a hospital.
The little boy does not know that his father, who received splinter wounds to the head and stomach, struggled for life for 20 days in a coma in a city hospital before succumbing to his injuries.
"Azad passed away but left the entire family in darkness," said Azad's 70-year-old mother, Anwara Begum, shedding tears while talking to The Daily Star yesterday. Azad, joint secretary of the Balughat unit of Awami League (AL), was the lone earner of his huge family, which included five siblings, their spouses and children, as well as his mother, wife and two children.
Now his family is destitute. "I spent all the cash I had, and had to sell my ornaments and made a huge loan when he was admitted to the hospital, but the result was nothing," widowed Maksuda told this correspondent, embracing her two children.
"What a wonderful son I lost!" exclaims Anwara. "His death has torn apart the whole family, made us all float in a hopeless sea."
Others spoke of Azad's fine qualities. "He was social, amicable, responsible, dutiful and 100 percent devoted to his party," said his brother-in-law, Mizanur Rahman.
Forty-five-year-old Azad was a self-made man. He left his village, Shakhipur in Dinajpur, for the capital for his studies after finishing his secondary school there. "Somehow he got involved with politics after landing in the capital and could not finish his higher secondary," his mother said.
"He struggled to make his living in the capital, working here and there and brought us [his family] to the capital," she reminiscences.
His siblings also spoke of the support he lent to the family. "Though a sibling, he [Azad] was more like a father to us," Azad's youngest brother told The Daily Star. "As it was he who funded our education and living."
Taking a job, Azad went to Saudi Arabia and came back home in 1997. With the little money he made there, Azad bought 1.5 kantha of land at Baran Tek in the Cantonment as well as a tailoring shop at Rajlaxmi in Uttara, which carried the expenses of the family.
On August 21, Azad, as usual, brought his five-year-old daughter home from school at 11:30am. Then he headed for the AL rally.
"Where are you going?" Maksuda asked Azad from behind the window grill when he was walking to some of his awaiting party men. "Got things to do," was his reply. "That was the last talk I had with him," Maksuda says.
Mizan, learning about the blast from locals and through satellite channels, rushed to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, where he found Azads' body lying on the floor in the verandah.
"He was bleeding awfully, but no doctor was available then to treat him," Mizan said. After a while, he managed to get hold of a doctor who asked him to make a CT Scan.
"I took him to a lab, got him scanned and brought him back to the hospital, but there was no one to see the report and continue his treatment," Mizan continued.
The following day, one Dr Jalal diagnosed Azad's condition as critical, saying "He is in a coma," and referred him to the Metropolitan hospital for better treatment.
"Doctors at that hospital asked for cash, which we immediately provided by selling Maksuda's ornaments. They performed a surgery on his brain, saying he received splinters in the head," Mizan said.
"The following day, the doctor asked for more money for another operation in the stomach for the same reason, but we could not manage the money," he added. "We met the AL Chief and sought help, and he immediately managed the hospital and the second surgery was performed on him."
But Azad remained in a coma for 20 days before succumbing to his injuries on September 10 at 6:00am. The family buried him at the Shanarpar Graveyard in Demra.
"Though AL gave Tk one lakh after he died, most of it went to repaying the loans we made during his treatment," Maksuda said.
A local lawmaker now supports the family with Tk 3,000 per month, which Maksuda spends for the education of her daughter.
"What's next?" asks Maksuda. "I am living on my in-laws now, who themselves are unemployed. What shall I do with these two children? I don't know if I will be able to provide them with their needs," she said in a hopeless voice.