My head is bursting. I can feel the blood coming down on my neck.
No, no one hit me or pushed me down. As far I can remember, I was playing hide and seek with my friends. They asked me to hide. I was looking for a place, and then all of a sudden I fell into this well.
I screamed, cried for help, even tried to climb up to get rid of this pain. Hearing me scream, my friends came to know that I am in this well shaft. I heard them shouting for help. They gathered people. And then they tried to pull me out by sending down a rope. I held the rope but could not hold on to it.
I live in a small room with my father, mother, and two siblings adjacent to this railway colony. It is often too difficult to live here like this. I get bored of living in that room all day. The afternoon is when I can get out of my home and breathe freely. But today, it has turned nightmarish. My life is going to be the cost of breathing freely.
One can ask why we came to play here in an abandoned place. I will ask them the same question, adding one more: Did they spare any land for us to play?
Ruling party leaders and cadres have established their control over a good amount of land in the capital. Last year, I overheard some people in the tea-stall saying that only eight lawmakers of the ruling party own 3,508 acres of land, which is equal to 10% of the total land in Dhaka.
I saw a ruling party backed parliamentarian scolding an official who came to recapture public land that came under the control of that parliamentarian.
On the other hand, there are the armed forces who own three DOHS areas only in this capital, and a cantonment with an abandoned airbase where the entry of civilians is prohibited.
I can hear my father now. He is screaming for help, asking the fire brigade men to pull me out. Every night, he used to return home from where he works, and I used to wait for him in front of our home. Irony of fate, he is waiting there for me, and I am in this well now.
Some moments back, a man calling himself Monir sent some juice to me and asked if I was here or not. I used to love this juice and would ask my father to buy it for me. He works as a guard in a school, so could not afford that, and I could have it hardly once a year.
I have no idea what has gone wrong with these people. People who gathered to save me have gone. I saw a camera coming down in the hole an hour ago.
Now it is getting darker, I heard some people saying the state minister has said there is no one in the hole. And then I heard someone saying: “Sir, he is there, I heard his voice,” and then someone replied: “There is no one.” I was so shocked, and tried to scream again. But I could not hear myself.
I could not see my father either. He was there some hours ago, and was asking for help. I do not know what has happened to him. I heard a loud voice, probably from a microphone, that was asking if there was anyone from my family. There was no response from the crowd. I heard some of them saying my father was picked up by law enforcers.
I don’t know what is wrong with this country. Whoever asks for his right, whoever stands against odds, whoever tries to raise his voice gets arrested, abducted, tortured, or harassed.
I heard about a shopkeeper from Jessore who was shot in the chest for protesting the derogatory comment of a minister about Hajj. Doctors had to cut a part of his lung, as it was riddled by pellets. He was later arrested.
I saw a news item about an Awami League leader, Haji Nur, on television who was abducted by men in plain clothes claiming to be RAB. Later in the same year, two of his family members were also picked up by some people in guise of law enforcers as they were searching for Mr Nur.
I want to know why my father was picked up. Is insisting that government agencies get me out of this well a crime in this country? Is asking for help to save a son a crime in this country? Is loving his son a crime in the county?
Probably, this is my last day on Earth. I am feeling faint, and cannot think of anything else. The rescue effort of the government is no more in action, as I cannot see any fire brigade men. I cannot even see the other volunteers who were trying to save me. They were probably driven away by the law enforcers.
I know these people can never get me out of this. How can the people who have failed to trace down hundreds of people who had fallen victims to enforced disappearances get me out of this well? The best thing they can do is to complicate the situation.
When Rana Plaza collapsed, they refused to take any foreign help and left many of the victims to die under the rubble; their skeletons were later discovered from the spot. I hope someday these people will be responsible enough, and not leave a well uncovered like this.
My moments are numbered, every minute is precious to me. But I have a wish. I wish someday Bangladesh will be a developed nation with a handful of young minds with new ideas.
None can save us but young people, with enormous voluntary spirit. Some day, they will rise against the whole system that left a child to die in a well, and force them to become responsible.
