Another victim of an arson attack succumbed to burn injuries at Dhaka Medical College Hospital after battling for life for nearly 12 hours in the early hours yesterday.
Nuruzzaman, 25, a truck driver and son of Joynal Abedin from Narsinghdi, succumbed to 40% burn injuries around 5:15am, confirmed burn unit Resident Surgeon Partha Shankar Pal.
He sustained injuries when pickets hurled petrol bombs at his truck in Gazipur on the first day of the opposition-enforced two-day hartal.
Victim’s elder brother Moazzem Hossain, 30, was also undergoing treatment at DMCH who sustained 5% burn injuries in the same incident.
Mozammel said: “We started for Narsingdi from Tangail around 6pm on Saturday on a cattle laden truck. As we reached Kaliakoir around 8pm, a gang of criminals, who were hartal supporters and anti-poll activists, first stopped our truck and then threw petrol bombs through the window of the truck.”
He said although the cattle traders managed to jump out of the truck, two of them got trapped inside as Moazzem was driving the truck.
“Within moments, Nuruzzaman’s whole body was on fire. I sustained burn injuries while trying to save my brother,” said Moazzem.
Kaliakoir police rescued the two brothers and admitted them to a hospital in Shafipur who were later shifted to DMCH.
Nuruzzaman left his wife along with a three-year-old son and a one-year-old daughter. Family members took Nuruzzaman’s body to his village home in the afternoon yesterday.
In separate drives, police arrested eight leaders and activists of Jamaat-e-Islami, including its Kaliakoir upazila unit Chief Shafiuddin Ahmed in this connection, said Omar Faruq, officer-in-charge of Kaliakoir police station.
Sub-Inspector Atiqur Rahman filed a case against them.
The truck had been seized to collect evidence and the cattle owner took away the cattle on another truck to Narsinghdi, said the OC.
Like Nuruzzaman, more than 30 people died in spates of arson and bomb attacks while over 300 sustained grave injuries since the Election Commission announced the date for the 10th National Parliamentary Election on November 25 last year.
Over 150 people died in the recent violence erupting from the disagreement between the two major political parties over the nature of election-time government.
