The wife of a road accident victim who died in the 80s and a mother whose son died in an accident six years ago have both joined students protesting for safer roads in Rajshahi.
Iffat Ara Eva, a woman who lost her husband just a year after their marriage in the 1980s, was unable to stop herself from joining the protest for safer roads on Thursday.
Iffat said: “Thirty years ago my husband lost his life in an accident. To date, I haven’t stopped shedding tears.”
Iffat, a development worker in Rajshahi, was seen holding a placard that said “We want justice,” while sitting on the street with hundreds of students at the Shaheb Bazar zero point area of Rajshahi.
Iffat studied Psychology at Rajshahi University. Her husband was a banker who died in a road accident at Sonargaon in Naryanganj.
Musarrat Bhuiyan, a receptionist at a city hospital who lost her son in another road accident six years ago, was also among the few elderly women who joined the students’ protests in Rajshahi.
After students urged her to say a few words, she said: “I have managed to bear the pain of losing my son after I came here.”
She also asked police to remain calm and urged the students to remain peaceful during the protest. Musarrat has been raising her sister’s son as her own, as her sister died in childbirth.
Recalling the memory of her deceased son, Musarrat said: “He wanted to study at Dhaka College and I took him to Dhaka to see it. One day, when we were walking on a sidewalk in Farmgate, a bus crushed him while he was still holding my hand.”
“My demands and that of the students’ are the same, and that’s why I decided to join them,” she added.