On August 18, a man came from Natore to the Dhaka Medical College morgue to find the body of his younger brother, 12-year-old Siam Sardar.
On July 19, Sayem went missing from the Al Jamia Madrasa area of Rajshahi. His family has been searching for him for a month. On July 28, they filed a GD at the police station. Since then, they have been searching for his brother in different morgues. The last hope was the DMC morgue, but they could not identify Sayem.
Babul Hossain, an assistant of the morgue, said the bodies had already mutiliated and swollen. Still, the relatives are trying to find the clothes or any other marks on the body.
At DMC, eight unidentified bodies are currently waiting. Among them are seven bodies of people who died in the conflict over the anti-discrimination quota movement. One of the bodies is that of a newborn baby or a premature baby.
Of these, the postmortem of two bodies was completed on August 19, and the rest were conducted in phases. Almost every day, relatives come to the hospital morgue to identify their loved ones.
Someone's close people—brothers, fathers, and sons—went out during the movement and did not return home. No one knows their whereabouts or if they are still alive. The last resort is the morgue of hospitals. However, none of these eight bodies have been identified yet. So, these will be handed over to Anjuman Mufidul Islam, who will burry them in the graveyard.
Rabbi's family came from Habiganj to the DMC morgue. The 19-year-old was working as a mason in Mirpur. He went to Mirpur-10 on July 5 with two colleagues to join the protest. Even though the colleagues returned home that day, there was no trace of the Rabbi.
From July 22 to August 18, a total of 39 unidentified bodies were handed over to Anjuman Mufidul Islam by the DMC authorities. Out of these, except for the eight bodies of the first phase, the remaining 31 people died during the movement, said the Forensic Department.
Every month, bodies arrive at Dhaka Medical College Hospital. When someone cannot be identified, the corpse is kept at the morgue for days after an autopsy so the relatives can identify the bodies. At one stage, the bodies are handed over to different police stations.
Prof Kazi Golam Mukhlesur Rahman, Head of the Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department at DMC, told Dhaka Tribune that more than 25 unidentified bodies were handed over to Anjuman Mufidul Islam in three phases and seven more bodies after the post-mortem.
He said, according to the autopsy report, most of the causes of death were gunshot wounds, head injuries, internal bleeding, and severe beatings all over the body.
The DMC authorities have conducted autopsies on 121 people who died during the movement till August 16. Most of the deaths involved gunshot wounds. Although the post-mortem examination of some bodies did not find the presence of bullets, forensic experts identified bullet marks.
Of the deceased, 50% were below 25 years old, and most of the rest were above 30 and between 35 and 45. There were no women's bodies.
According to the Forensic Department, eight unidentified bodies were handed over to the police after autopsies on July 18, nine on July 22, another nine on July 23, and 11 on July 28.
Prof Rahman said the bodies were rotting, prompting post-mortems. "During the movement, we had to do postmortem on many dead bodies, whereas the hospital has the daily capacity for 12 autopsies. As a result, some of the corpses that were in bad condition had to be given to the morgue.
More than 56 bodies at Anjuman Mufidul Islam
Kamruzzaman of Char Kamaria village of Charalgi Union of Gafargaon Upazila of Mymensingh went missing on August 4 during the anti-discrimination student movement. Fifteen days after this incident, his relatives found his bullet-ridden body in the morgue of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital in the capital. He was buried at the family graveyard on the morning of August 20.
Kamruzzaman's body was found by relatives, but no one came to identify 10 more bodies in this hospital. Therefore, those bodies were buried, with the help of Anjuman Mufidul Islam, in the Rayerbazar graveyard. The hospital still has an unidentified body.
From July 22 to August 18, Ajnuman Mufidul Islam Burial Service Officer Kamrul Ahmed said a total of 56 unidentified bodies arrived from four hospitals in Dhaka through the police. The two other hospitals are Sir Salimullah Medical College Mitford Hospital and Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmad Medical College Hospital in Gazipur. Two more bodies came from an embassy and the Kamalapur Railway Police Station.
He admitted that the number of unclaimed bodies was higher than usual. However, he said he could not say how many bodies were in the quota movement.
He said: "Only one of these bodies was identified by the relatives who came to us. The boy was 20 years old. He joined the movement but did not return home. The family members identified the youth from the picture we have."
As soon as a body arrives, they make arrangements for burial. Anjuman Mufidul Islam does not have arrangements to store the bodies.
75 burials in Rayerbazar
In just 10 days, from July 22-31, at least 46 unidentified bodies, including that of a child, were buried in the Rayerbazar graveyard. All the corpses had bullet marks.
About 75 unclaimed dead bodies, except those with severe injuries and bullet deaths, were buried in Block No. 4 of the graveyard from July 18-31, said grave digger Mohammod Rofik.
He said: "We do not open the body bags and do not see the bodies. It is impossible. The bags were kept zipped, but the condition of the bodies was very bad. The individuals who loaded the bodies into the van recounted experiencing a gunshot wound to the head. The 46 bodies that had gunshot wounds came together with 10-12 dead bodies. The officials informed us an hour before the bodies arrived, and we started digging the graves as per instructions."
During burial, blood was still coming out of the package. Most of the bodies were bleeding from the head and chest, he recalled.
A caretaker at the graveyard told Dhaka Tribune: "In the last 10 days of July, digging so many graves together within an hour became difficult."
The Imam who conducted the funeral prayers of these unidentified bodies said: "We did not see the bodies with our own eyes. Almost 46 of the bodies that came from Anjuman Mufidul Islam were shot in the head and chest. We learned this information from the car driver and staff."