Baishakh tour turns tragic
A joyful trip turned tragic in a simple twist of fate.
Two university students drowned and four others went missing in the waters of St Martin's where they went to celebrate Pahela Baishakh.
The incident happened on Monday afternoon as they went swimming off the coast of the St Martin's Island in Cox's Bazar.
The dead -- Manfezul Islam, 23, and Saddam Hossain, 22 -- were students of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology in the capital. The four who remain unaccounted for are their classmates Sabbir Hasan, Shahrier Islam Noman, Uday Mahmood and Ghulam Rahim.
A group of 34 students of CSE department went to the St Martin's to celebrate Pahela Baishakh, the first day of the Bangla calendar year, with no idea that the events that would unfold would haunt them for the rest of their life.
The Bangladesh Navy ship BNS Nirmul has meanwhile joined the Coast Guard and around 12 trawlers owned by locals in a combined search operation in the Bay of Bengal.
The search operation would continue until they found the students, said Lt Shahid Al Ahsan, St Martin's station commander of Bangladesh Coast Guard, reports our Cox's Bazar correspondent.
Sub-inspector Abdul Haque, in-charge of St Martin police outpost, said the group of 34 students had reached the island around 12:00noon Monday and checked in at local hotel 'St Shore Resort'.
Of them, a team of 10 students went to the Prince Heaven point, western end of the jetty, around 2:00pm for a bath in the Bay, the police official said.
Within a few minutes, the students had started screaming and locals had rushed to the spot and tried to rescue the students who went under water, he added.
On information, navy, coastguard and police personnel also rushed the spot and rescued six students with the help of locals around 3:00pm.
The rescued students, whose conditions were critical, were whisked off through a speedboat to Teknaf upazila health complex where Manfezul and Saddam were declared dead. The four others were taken to Cox's Bazar Sadar Hospital around 7:00pm.
Ratan Chowdhury, supervisor of the Sadar hospital, said the four other students were released yesterday morning.
The upazila health complex authorities handed over the bodies to their families yesterday.
Of the dead, Saddam lived in West Tezturi Bazar in Dhaka. He was buried at Martyred Intellectual Graveyard in Mirpur, while Manfezul was taken to Thakurgaon for burial.
"After his term final was over, my son insisted on going to the St Martin's. I did not want to let him go, but he kept on insisting," said Golam Faruk, father of Saddam.
He said there was no arrangement for quick treatment for his son on the island.
"My son did not know how to swim and that's why we did not want him to go to the island… I warned him not to get down in the sea…," Manfezul's father Maksedul Alam could not say further.
Before he started for Cox's Bazar, Sabbir had posted a status in Facebook: "Farewell friends! Going out of network!!" Twenty-four hours elapsed, but there was no trace of him yet.
Sabbir's father said there should be good arrangement of treatment in such a popular tourist spot like the St Martin's.
Prof Dr AMM Safiullah, vice-chancellor of the university, said a team of the university headed by CSE head Abdullah Al Mamun was on the island to stay with the search operation.
"It's very unfortunate that we've lost some bright students. Their final term examinations ended on April 9," he told The Daily Star. He added the students organised the trip on their own without informing the authorities.
"Usually, when a group of students go for a trip outside, they take permission from me or the head of the department concerned. But they did not tell anybody. When I talked to the chair of the department, he also told me in the negative," the VC added.
Cox's Bazar Deputy Commissioner Ruhul Amin said they were looking into the incident if there was any neglect behind the tragedy.
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