Last straw also lost
Farzana, 16, is the sole survivor from an arson attack that had left nine of her family members dead at Kurmitola Bihari camp in mid-June. Ever since then her father Yasin Mia, who was outside the house during the attack, was her only reason to continue a life shattered by irreparable loss. With her father's death yesterday, however, that too seems to have gone.
“Now there's nobody left for me. Who will take care of me now?” Farzana cried in front of her father's body.
Yasin Mia, 50, died in a road accident in the capital's Pallabi area when he was hit by a bus around 10:30am in front of Purabi cinema.
A hairdresser at Gulshan Club, he was on his way to buy some medicine for his ailing daughter.
Following the arson attack, Yasin had told The Daily Star several times that he was very concerned about her daughter's health. The attack was allegedly carried out by aides of a local lawmaker.
Even in the cruellest turn of his life, he had managed to find a footing hoping his teenage daughter would start a new life once she recovered fully.
"She [Farzana] is the only reason I am still living. I want her back, fully recovered," Yasin had told The Daily Star when Farzana was admitted at DMCH with 17 percent burn injuries.
Witnesses said he was standing on the footboard of a local bus when another bus hit him from behind, smashing his torso against the handle of his bus.
He was rushed to the Islami Bank Hospital in Mirpur and later shifted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital as his condition deteriorated.
Doctors at the DMCH declared him dead around 1:45pm, according to Syed Ziauzzaman, officer-in-charge of Pallabi Police Station.
Quoting sources, the OC said a bus of ETC transport caused the accident. Police, however, could neither arrest the driver nor seize the bus.
Sources at the DMCH morgue, where an autopsy of the body was performed yesterday evening, said Yasin's lung and several of his chest bones were hit severely, which caused huge internal bleeding.
Yasin's septuagenarian mother Sagira Khatun, who came to Dhaka from Bogra hearing the news, lamented that her son never paid any heed when she had requested him to settle back in Bogra for ever.
“Yasin thought of Farzana's better treatment in Dhaka and also of the fact that nine of his dear ones were buried here,” she said.
However, while talking to The Daily Star in front of the Gulshan Club a week ago, Yasin had said he was considering going back to Bogra after Farzana's recuperation.
Asked if he would file any case against the arson attack, he said he was looking up to the decision of his community leaders in this connection.
Farzana, too, said her father was taking very good care of her when these correspondents had visited her in Kalshi last week.
“Several times I wanted to visit our burnt house but my father never allowed me to, thinking I will not be able to bear the pain,” she told The Daily Star.
After her release from the DMCH a couple of weeks earlier, she has been living in a relative's house near the Bihari camp in Kurmitola. She is yet to be fully cured.
Yasin was laid to eternal rest beside the nine departed members of his family at the Kalshi graveyard last night.
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