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DU, ‘laasher michhil’, and an uprising
MASHFIQ MIZAN
A child steps onto the street from an alley -- only to be shot dead in an instant. A college student lies lifeless in a pool of blood at a city hospital, his phone vibrating with calls from “Maa”. And a “laasher michhil” (procession of bodies) on the streets of Dhaka.
These are only fragments of scenes I reported while covering the July uprising.
When the quota reform protests erupted in July, I was in Kurigram covering floods, watching from afar as Sheikh Hasina branded the students “Razakars” [traitors]. Students came out in protest against this pervasive culture of tagging.
Bangladesh Chhatra League, the now-banned student wing of Awami League, swooped on protesters on July 15.
As I saw the blood-soaked faces of female students of Dhaka University, and scenes of BCL thugs attacking injured protesters even at hospitals, I knew something bigger was coming.
I called my desk editor, boarded a train, and reached Dhaka on July 16 -- the day Abu Sayed was killed in Rangpur.
This was no longer just about quota reform.
There’s a saying: whoever controls the DU dormitories controls the country. Passing Ruqayyah Hall at 11:00pm that night, I heard commotion -- the women had revolted, driving out BCL. Soon, all female dorms followed, then the men’s.
By dawn, DU was free of BCL.
That afternoon, students found themselves surrounded -- police, Rab, BGB closed in, unleashing shotgun pellets, tear gas, and sound grenades. And of course there were BCL members.
Forced to abandon their campus in tears, some chanted, “If police enter our campus, we’ll enter parliament.”
That night, just when I thought it was all over, I heard a procession trying to enter DU through Chankharpool -- fired upon, they moved to Jatrabari, where locals joined.
The next day, with private university students and people from all walks of life joining, the movement became a mass uprising. Jatrabari and Rampura turned into battlegrounds, fierce battles also took place in Uttara, Mirpur and Dhanmondi.
History was being written in blood.
July 19 was one of the bloodiest days. Unarmed protesters were shot down one after another at Rampura, Banasreee, Badda, Jatrabari and beyond. Bullets also rained down from Rab choppers.
In the evening, bodies flooded Dhaka Medical College Hospital, filling the two morgues. Bodies were piled on top of one another. Parents searched for their missing children among the dead. The injured poured in by the hundreds, with floors soaked in blood, and doctors struggling to hold back tears.
It wasn’t a warzone -- there weren’t any invading or occupying forces involved, this was Dhaka, where the government was carrying out a mass killing against its own people.
The college student whose phone rang endlessly with calls from “Maa” was Samudra, killed as BGB opened fire near Rampura’s BTV centre.
I interviewed his mother a week later, she asked, “Did he die instantly? Or did he suffer? What were his last words?”
I had no answer.
Covering Rampura and Banasree on July 19, I counted 13 bodies within just an hour.
SEE PAGE S3