Two burn victims of the Paribagh petrol bomb attack died yesterday after five days of struggle at the intensive care unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital. They died within a space of eight hours.
Insurance executive Shahina Akter, 42, succumbed to her injuries around 1:45am while fruit trader Farid Miah, 60, at 9:50am.
With the deaths, the total number of victims who died of burns in the DMCH since November 26 comes at 22. In most of the cases, unidentified arsonists hurled petrol bombs at vehicles carrying them.
On January 3, anti-election pickets hurled a petrol bomb at a passenger bus near Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in Paribagh leaving Farid, Shahina and the bus driver wounded.
Shahina was on her way to Gulistan to catch a Khulna-bound bus while Farid was travelling to Badamtoli to pick fruits for his Friday sale.
Farid’s wife Halima Akhter and their two sons Swapon and Sujon were found mourning his death when this correspondent visited the burn unit of DMCH yesterday. Nine-year-old Ripon, the couple’s youngest child, had gone home to get some rest after staying the night at his father’s bedside.
“Have you ever heard that people can burn people on a Jumma day? Where will I go with my children now?” a wailing Halima said.
Farid was the sole breadwinner of the five-member family; he used to vend fruits on footpaths after buying them from Badamtoli.
Halima is uncertain about how to bury her husband. “If we get help we can bury him in Dhaka; otherwise we will have to take him to our ancestral village in Narshingdi.”
Shahina, who had suffered burns covering 64% of her body, was a Khulna-based employee of insurance company MetLife and left behind a marine engineer who living in Candada. She will be buried once her son comes back.
