Handicapped Salma crawls to school

Disabled Salma busy with studies. She can utilise only her right hand. PHOTO: STAR

Indomitable mental strength has made physically handicapped Salma different from others. She is determined to be educated and not to remain a burden on her parents.

Now a student of class ten at Amalsar High School, Salma, daughter of a day labourer, has been struggling since her childhood.

"I want to be educated and self-reliant", 15 year-old Salma told this correspondent during a recent visit to her house at Amalsar village in Sreepur upazila.

She was attacked with polio at the age of two. Poor and illiterate Sohrab Hossain could not arrange her quick treatment. The disease made her two legs and the right hand paralysed and deformed. Hell befell the family.

"As I am poor and illiterate I could do nothing for my daughter's treatment except shedding tears," Sohrab said.

At her insistence, he carried her on his shoulders to a primary school in the area. This was a turning point in her life.

She continued to go to school riding on her father's shoulder. Sohrab could not buy her a wheel chair till she was in class five.

In 2000, her father somehow managed to buy a wheelchair. She went to school alone using the wheelchair.

But one of its wheels broke this year. She now crawls to school.