At least five persons were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with burn and splinter injuries on the second day of the 72-hour rail-road-waterways blockade on Sunday.
Four of the victims sustained severe burn injuries while one suffered splinter wounds to his head, said doctors at the government hospital in the capital.
While visiting the hospital’s high deficiency unit on Sunday afternoon, this correspondent found Shaheda Begum whimpering by the bedside of her son Mehedi Hassan, a truck driver, who sustained 64% burn injury when pickets hurled a petrol bomb at his vehicle in Faridpur on Saturday night.
Mehedi, 27, was brought to the DMCH burn unit in the early morning of on Sunday.
Narrating the horrific attack Mehedi said he was on his way to Faridpur from Kutubpur when pro-blockaders hurled a petrol bomb through the window of his truck near Horishova.
“It hit my lower abdomen and my whole body caught fire before I could come out of the truck,” he said in a muffled voice. “I lost my consciousness as the pain from sizzling wounds was unbearable.”
Mehedi, from Kamlapur in Faridpur district, is married with two minor daughters. His mother said she had repeatedly requested him not to go out to work but he did not heed as he had to earn money for his family.
In a similar attack, Mohammad Milu, 40, sustained burns when pickets set fire to his truck with a petrol bomb at Gazipur on Saturday night as he was going to Sylhet from Kaliganj.
Milu’s assistant, Mohammad Rubel, 32, also received burn injuries as he was sitting next to the driver. They were both admitted to the DMCH burn unit around 2:30am on Sunday.
Milu’s wife, Laili Begum, said she came to the capital from their village in Bogura as soon as she heard about the attack. The couple has two young sons aged 12 and 7 back at home.
Another victim of a petrol bomb attack Abdus Sattar, a retired madrasha teacher, was rushed to the DMCH from Barisal in a critical state on Sunday evening.
Sattar, 65, sustained burns over 64% of his body when pickets torched the three-wheeler taxi he was travelling in near the Badarpur Darbar Sharif at Patuakhali on Saturday evening.
His nephew, Rezaul Karim, said Sattar was first taken to Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital but when his condition deteriorated, doctors referred him to the burn unit at DMCH.
Furthermore, Mokhlesur Rahman Sharif, 38, was taken to the hospital around 2:30pm after he was wounded in the head by splinters from a crude bomb that exploded in front of Titumir College at Mohakhali in the city.
Sharif, who works at a telecommunication centre in the area, was returning to his office after offering prayer at a nearby mosque.
Doctors, who operated on him to remove the splinters said he was in a critical state and was running the risk of brain damage.
The doctors also said the condition of Golam Kibria, a lawyer who was injured in a petrol bomb attack on a bus at Malibagh Chowdhuripara on Saturday night, was not good as he was still unconscious.
Kibria was later transferred to Nitor, a state-run orthopaedic hospital, for proper treatment as his left hand was badly broken.
Another patient who is also in a critical state was Dulu Mia, a policeman who received splinter injuries in Joypurhat.
Meanwhile, five bus passengers, who were severely burned in a fire attack at Shahbagh on Thursday evening, were undergoing treatment at the burn unit’s intensive care unit.
The patients, suffering from up to 35% burns, were identified as Rahajul, Nurnabi, Jahangir, Abu Talha and Babu.
Shamanta Lal Shen, coordinator of the Burn and Plastic Surgery Unit, told the Dhaka Tribune that members of a specialised medical board were doing their best to treat the patients, and they were hopeful that the victims would recover from their horrific injuries.
Since October 27, at least 38 victims of fire and crude bomb attacks, carried out during opposition-called hartals and blockades, have been undergoing treatment at the DMCH. Ten of them are still in critical condition.
