Two years after losing his right hand during the July-August uprising, 37-year-old businessman Al-Amin still wakes up feeling as though his missing fingers are moving.
Then reality returns.
“I still feel like my hand is there,” he said.
“Sometimes at night I feel my fingers moving. Then I remember I don’t have that hand anymore.”
For Al-Amin, the July uprising did not end on August 5, 2024.
It continues every day as he struggles to support his wife and three children without work, while travelling repeatedly from Mymensingh to Dhaka for medical treatment.
Like many seriously injured protesters, he says surviving the uprising was only the beginning. Rehabilitation, employment and rebuilding a normal life remain elusive.
When the anti-discrimination movement spread across the country in 2024, Al-Amin was running a small business in Mymensingh.
He said he initially watched the protests from a distance.
But the killing of Begum Rokeya University student Abu Sayed convinced him to close his shop and join the demonstrations.
“I could no longer stay at home,” he told Dhaka Tribune.
On August 5, while participating in a procession demanding the government’s resignation in Mymensingh city, he said he was attacked by Awami League activists wielding sharp weapons.
Trying to shield himself, he suffered devastating injuries.
“My right hand was severed. I was also badly injured in my head, leg and foot,” he recalled.
He believes he was specifically targeted because of his previous association with the BNP.
Fellow protesters rushed him first to Mymensingh Medical College Hospital before he was transferred to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and later the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.
Doctors fought for more than two weeks to save his arm.
An 18-hour operation initially offered hope that it could be reattached.
But complications during subsequent surgery destroyed the remaining tissue. Even after consulting foreign specialists, doctors were unable to save the limb.
On August 22, it was amputated.
Although he later received a prosthetic hand through Brac, he says it has significant limitations.
“It works, but it is not waterproof,” he said.
“The interim government promised a better prosthetic hand from Germany. I am still waiting.”
He said he personally raised the matter with Prime Minister Tarique Rahman during a recent meeting, hoping the promise would finally be fulfilled.
Beyond the physical disability, he continues to endure chronic pain and the emotional burden of phantom limb syndrome.
“I still feel pressure in my head. Because of the metal rod in my leg, I cannot even walk properly,” he said.
Yet his memories of the uprising are not defined only by violence.
Before he was injured, he spent much of the protests distributing water and biscuits to demonstrators.
He smiled while recalling that strangers still occasionally recognise him.
“They ask me, ‘Brother, won’t you give us water? Won’t you give us biscuits?’ Hearing that makes me happy. At least I was able to do something for people.”
Financially, however, life has become increasingly difficult.
He has received Tk200,000 in government assistance, a monthly allowance of Tk20,000 and an additional Tk25,000 grant from the Prime Minister’s Office.
But he says almost all of it is consumed by treatment costs and household expenses, leaving nothing to restart his business or secure his family’s future.
“My children look at me every day,” he said quietly.
“I keep asking myself, how long can I remain unemployed?”
He says what he needs most is not charity but an opportunity to become self-reliant again.
“We are not asking for sympathy,” he said.
“We want the chance to live with dignity. If I can get a job, I can support my family and start life again.”
