‘I have been waiting six years to feel Badhon in my arms’

Six-and-a-half years ago, M Hasan Rahman Badhon left Bangladesh to further his studies in the United States. Although he had kept in regular phone contact with his parents, Badhon’s mother had been counting down the days when her son would return home, and she could finally embrace him after all those years. However, fate was not kind to the 26-year old Bangladeshi student, and a killer’s bullet on Saturday night put an end to his mother’s dream. Speaking to the Bangla Tribune, Hasna Ara Begum said she had last spoken to Badhon on November 23 - two days before he was shot dead and his body dumped in the trunk of the car he had been using to make pizza deliveries in Wichita County, Kansas. “I talked to him for 31 minutes but the phone got disconnected, so I called Badhon again and told him that I have been longing for more than six years to embrace him,” she said with tearful eyes. “It was the last time I spoke to my son. Now all that I have left of my son are memories.” Hasna, who works as a principal officer in a private bank, had been expecting to visit her son in Kansas. “He wanted to take me to the US and give me a guided tour of the country. He was saving up $600 to afford the visit for me,” she said. Badhon had completed a course on Associate Mechanical Engineering from Butler Community College in Eldorado, and was due to enter the Department of Aeronautical Engineering at Wichita State University in December. “Badhon was interested in building aircrafts from a young age,” his father, Mujibar Rahman, told the Bangla Tribune. “He passed the viva exam for joining the US Air Force and was set to join last October. However, recent US government regulations delayed his chance.” Mujibar, who is himself an engineer in a private firm in Dhaka, added that he had hoped his son would work for the betterment of Bangladesh after receiving proper education from abroad. But following Badhon’s death on Saturday, this dream will never be fulfilled. “To my knowledge, he did not have any enemies. He was not the kind of person to make enemies,” said Mujibar,. Badhon hailed from Telipara Setu Road of Gazipur. He had a younger sister, who studies in a private university.This article was first published on Bangla tribune