Shamsur Rahman Samsu, one of the victims who were burnt during Jamaat-e-Islami’s 48-hour countrywide general strike, succumbed to his burn injuries at the intensive care unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Sunday.
DMCH Burn Unit Director Samantalal Sen said Samsu died around 3pm.
Truck driver Samsu, 55, was going to Panchagarh from Shirajganj with a truck loaded with fertiliser. When he stopped for a break near the Bogra-Shahjahanpur road on Wednesday night, a group of hartal (general strike) activists attacked the truck and set it ablaze.
His helper, Shahin, managed to get away from the burning truck. However, Samsu, who tried to douse the flames, was overcome by the flames.
Samsu was one of the three severely-injured drivers who were admitted to the Burn and Plastic Surgery unit of DMCH on Thursday, the last day of 48-hour hartal enforced by Jamaat-e-Islami to protest the death penalty of its leader Quader Mollah for war crimes.
He had 95% of his body burnt.
His two wives, Golap Banu and Sabina Begum, were waiting outside the ICU door, worried about how they and their seven children would manage to survive if anything happened to Samsu.
Iqbal Ahmed, a doctor at the burn unit, said they were trying their best to treat the injured patients, who are all in critical conditions.
Another two drivers who were set to fire by the pickets at Gazipur bypass and Chouddogram in Comilla during the hartal, were also in critical condition, fighting for their lives at the burn unit till on Sunday, said Doctors at the state-run hospital.
Among them, Mohammad Nazrul Islam Bhuiyan, 35, was driving a passenger bus on the Azimpur-Gazipur route when a group of hartal supporters suddenly stopped the bus at the Gazipur bypass and set fire to it with a petrol bomb.
He suffered burns to 65% of his body.
About Nazrul’s condition, Iqbal said: “We call it critical when someone suffers 25% of burn on his body whereas 65% of his [Nazrul] body had been burnt. He might sink anytime.”
Another victim, truck driver Sekendar Bepari, 42, was on his way to Chittagong from Dhaka on Wednesday night to deliver three power generators. Pro-hartal activists attacked his truck and set it on fire at Chouddogram in Comilla, leaving Bepari badly burnt.
