Monday may have been just another hartal day for the people of the country, but for the family of late schoolteacher Shamsun Nahar, it was the day of living nightmare.
Nahar, who was a teacher at Agargaon Tawhid Laboratory School in the capital, died from severe injuries when pickets hurled brick chunks at her during the hartal. Her husband Shahjahan Siraj, who was with her, was injured as well.
The couple with their two sons were on their way to Lakshmipur from Dhaka in a covered van that day.
“We were moving to Ramgati as I was transferred to Noakhali. My wife was going to join Hajiganj Model Academy in Ramgati as principal,” said Siraj, who is an area manager at Anwar Agency, a sister concern of American Life Insurance Company (Alico) based at New Eskaton in Dhaka.
“Those pickets destroyed my life. They took my sons’ mother away from them,” the grief-stricken husband cried.
Showing shirt he had been wearing when they were attacked, soaked with his wife’s blood, he said: “What kind of destructive politics is this that took the life of my wife?”
Nahar was laid to rest around 10am yesterday in her family graveyard at Charporagacha village in Ramgati upazila, Lakhsmipur district.
Her sons, Shah Md Sreeman, 13, and Shah Nur Ali Prince, 9, were in a distressed state. The horror was evident on their faces when they recounted their experience of losing their mother.
Prince, Nahar’s youngest son, said a broken piece of brick hit her mother’s head, and she fell down. “Before she could say anything to us, she was gone,” Prince told the Dhaka Tribune.
Trying to talk about his mother, Sreeman burst into tears. “My mother will never call me to eat, or wake me to go to school,” the distraught boy said.
Nahar’s family also includes her father Md Ali Hossain, who retired as the headmaster of Dakshin Maguri Government Primary School in Lakshmipur Sadar upazila, her mother Lutfun Nahar, two sisters and a brother.
Talking to the Dhaka Tribune, Md Yusuf, 49, elder brother of Siraj, said: “We wanted justice for this murder. We do not want such kind of hartals from any political party in Bangladesh. We do not want firing and picketing. People keep dying for this, while the pickets live on.”
“What did she do to deserve this? She was not a politician. She was the maker of men – a teacher,” said Md Nurul Amin, chairman of Charporagacha union parishad.
“Nahar was like a daughter to me. I cannot believe what happened. The whole village loved her; they are grieving for her.
“What happened was not hartal; it was an act of terror. Hartals and demonstrations are a democratic right, but it does not remain democratic when people’s lives are lost in the name of hartal. We want justice and proper investigation of this killing,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
50 BNP-Jamaat activists sued for Nahar’s murder
A murder case was filed against 50 activists of the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami and another 200 unidentified people for the killing of Nahar. Among the accused are the Sadar upazila BNP secretary, district Jubo Dal President Mahbub Alamgir Alo, Noakhali district Chhatra Dal President Nurul Amin Khan, General Secretary Saber Ahmed, Sechchhasebak Dal Joint Convenor Abdul Karim Mukta.
Anowar Hossain, OC At Sudharam Model police station, said Sub-Inspector Masud Alam filed the case. Police detained five in this regard.