After battling to stay alive for over a month, Jahangir Alam succumbed to his injuries on February 26, 2015, in the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, a grizzled old rickshaw-puller tells this correspondent.
“Forty—six percent of Jahangir’s body was covered in burns after his truck was firebombed in Char Matha, Bogra town, on January 23 last year,” 60-year-old rickshaw puller Syed Ali says, recalling the events that lead to his only son’s painful and untimely death.
“Before he died, my son asked me, lying on the hospital bed, to look after his family,” he recalls, his voice choked with emotion.
The terrible damage done to the thirty-year-old’s body by arsonists enforcing the BNP-led alliance blockade proved too great to fix, Syed Ali says.
Jahangir’s father has taken up work as a rickshaw-van puller in the sixth decade of his life to make ends meet for his son’s family.
“My son died while earning money for us. It is our responsibility to help his wife and children,” Syed Ali, says.
“I never thought life would come to this. My son never let me work. If I wanted to do something, he would say: ‘Father, take some rest now, you are older now.’”
Jahangir’s wife Beauty Begum lives in her father-in-law’s house in Kahalu, Bogra. The family consists of Jahangir’s elderly parents, his widow and their two school-aged children.
Beauty says her husband’s death has reduced the family to poverty and destroyed her children’s future.
Jahangir’s older child, son Jahid Hossain, 15, has left school to work in a jute mill where makes Tk1,200 a month.
Beauty says Jahid sometimes works a double or even triple shift.
“Jahangir loved his son so much he never allowed me to use a harsh word with him. Now his beloved boy is working in a jute mill to support the family,” Beauty says, crying softly.
“Our dream was to educate both of our children. Jahid now works. I am struggling to give my eleven-year-old daughter, Jakia Akther, an education,” she says.
Jakia studies in class five at the Nishchintopur Government Primary School.
Beauty says the finances are tight and worries about how to pay for tutors. She says help from the government and personal savings have helped the family survive this ordeal.
Beauty’s in-laws are not wealthy people and do not own assets like land. Her father-in-law has gone back to work to keep them alive, she says.
“I have accepted my fate. My only dream is to marry my daughter into better circumstances and to find my son a better job,” Beauty says.
