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Everything shattered
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R&J Coaching Center in Jugirhat of Amanbazar. He lived in Akbar’s house in Hathazari. Hisham’s brother lives in Australia while another sister is a teacher in Dhaka.
Overcome with grief in front of Chattogram Medical College Hospital (CMCH)’s emergency gate, Akbar said, “His [Hisham’s] father passed away when he was two. I raised him as my son and fulfilled his every demand, just like his father would have.
“Around 8:00am as he was leaving the house, Hisham said he was going to the waterfall along with his teachers and friends [of the coaching centre]. He was very excited and also made a video call to his mother before leaving,” the uncle said.
“I repeatedly asked him not to go to the picnic, but he would not listen.”
A total of 18 people -- 12 students, four teachers of R&J Coaching Center, and the driver and his assistant -- were going to visit the Khoiyachora falls in Mirsharai yesterday morning by a HiAce microbus.
Five of the students were HSC examinees from Jogirhat Ziaur Rahman College while seven were SSC candidates from Najumia High School.
The tragic accident happened on the way back from the picnic. Eleven people died on the spot, including all four teachers -- Jiaul Haque Sajib, Wahidul Alam Jisan, Rakib Khan, and Ridwan Rahman.
As news of the accident spread, family members, students and friends gathered at Chattogram Medical College Hospital (CMCH). The air at the hospital seemed to become heavy with fear, panic and grief as nothing but news that their loved ones were okay could console them.
Seven passengers of the hired microbus were undergoing treatment at CMCH.
ALL FOUR FRIENDS KILLED
On June 15, four friends -- Sajib, Jisan, Rakib, and Ridwan -- established the coaching centre.
As students started enrolling there, the families of the four friends started hoping that the centre would flourish, but that hope was shattered just a month and a half later.
When Sajib, a student of mathematics department at Omar Gani MES College in the port city, left home for the visit to Khoiyachora falls, he asked his father Md Hamid to pray for him.
“Sajib told me that he was going to attend a picnic with the teachers and students of his coaching centre. He asked me to pray for him … Who could ever imagine that this would be his last journey?” said a wailing Hamid.
“What will happen to us now? How will we live without him?” asked Hamid, who runs a grocery shop in Aman Bazar.
Holding on to his father, Sajib’s younger brother Mujibul Ahmed Tousif said, “I was sleeping when he [Sajib] left the house. Please come back, brother, please!”
The father and the son were waiting for the dead body in the hospital.
Faruk Chowdhury, a teacher of another coaching centre in the same area, said, “All four teachers were my students and they were part-time teachers of my coaching centre before starting their own coaching centre.”
He continued: “They started the coaching centre in the last month with big dreams.”
[FM Mizanur Rahaman, Md Nazrul Islam, Mohammad Suman and Arun Bikash Dey contributed to this report]

Venezuela’s Maduro regime loses latest step of UK gold case
AFP, LONDON
The Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro yesterday vowed to fight on after the latest UK judgment in a long-running legal tussle over who gets to control the oil-rich country’s gold reserves.
UK judge Sara Cockerill ruled for the rival government of opposition leader Juan Guaido in her technical decision concerning appointments made to the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV) by Guaido.
She found that rulings by Venezuela’s supreme court, blocking the appointments, could not be recognised in English law.
One factor cited by Cockerill was “clear evidence” that the Supreme Tribunal of Justice had been stacked with Maduro-supporting judges.
“This is an unfortunate ruling that ultimately rests on a narrow issue of law about the recognition of foreign judgments,” said Sarosh Zaiwalla of the law firm Zaiwalla and Co, representing the Maduro-backed BCV.
“The BCV is considering an appeal,” he added.
There was no immediate comment from Guaido’s side.
The ultimate thrust of the case remains to be decided, after the UK Supreme Court last year ruled that the dispute should be heard again by the lower Commercial Court in London.
Cockerill’s ruling put the value of the 31 tonnes of Venezuelan gold deposited with the Bank of England at about $1.95 billion.
Maduro wants to recover the gold. But access has so far been denied as Britain, in line with other countries including the United States, acknowledges Guaido as interim president.
The United States and Venezuela severed diplomatic ties in 2019 after Maduro was re-elected the year before to a second term in a ballot boycotted by the opposition.
However, in a tentative sign of a potential warming of relations, Washington sent a high-level delegation to energy-rich Venezuela in March, just days after Russia invaded Ukraine.