“How will I live alone with our child? Just when we found happiness, he was taken away from us.”
These were the words of Shanta Maria -- wife of Imran Hossain, who was killed by gunshot wounds on the night of July 19.
“He brought me to Dhaka and worked so hard to get a job… and just when he finally got it, he died. I had dinner ready for him to take to his office, but he never came back,” she added.
Imran was the son of former army member Nazrul Khalifa, 57, and Selina Begum, 50. They are residents of Barisal.
Imran was killed in Dhaka’s Shahjadpur area while going to get medicines for his wife, Shanta Maria. He worked as a security guard at a building in Gulshan-2.
Maria said that Imran was supposed to work from 8am to 8pm on July 19, the day he was killed, but since she was ill, he changed his shift to 8pm to 8am on July 20.
On July 19 afternoon, Imran received a call from his office, telling him that if the situation was good, he should come to work, but if it was bad, he did not need to come in. Later, around 5:30pm, Imran told his wife to prepare dinner for him to take to the office, and he went out to assess the situation and buy her medicines.
Tragically, he was shot and killed around 6pm that day.
Upon receiving information, she went to United Hospital around 7:30 pm and identified the body of her husband, Imran Hossain. Later, Imran's body was taken from United Hospital at around 9:30pm without an autopsy and brought to his village home in the early hours of Saturday.
Nazrul Khalifa, Imran's father, recounted that around 7pm on Friday, July 19, they received a call from Imran’s phone. A doctor informed them that Imran was very sick and was at United Hospital. After notifying Imran's wife, she went to the hospital and found Imran’s body lying among other bodies.
Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Gournadi police station Anwar Hossain said: "We have been informed that the bodies of Jamal Sikder and Imram Hossain Khalifa, who were shot dead in Dhaka, were buried at their family graveyards in Purba Hosnabad and Kalna villages of Gournadi upazila."