Another bus helper burnt in sleep

So that the vehicle does not get stolen, bus helper Alamgir was sleeping inside his bus parked at Mawa yesterday when blockade supporters torched it burning him badly. The photo was taken at DMCH. Photo: Star

Another bus helper sustained burns as blockaders set fire to the vehicle with him sleeping inside in the early hours yesterday at Louhajang upazila of Munshiganj.
By the time local people doused the fire, the victim, Alamgir Hossain, received 20 percent burns. He was immediatey taken to Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, reports our Munshiganj correspondent.
Earlier, two helpers in their teens fell victim to such attacks on a bus and a pick-up during blockades enforced by the main opposition BNP.
Yesterday’s incident happened around 4.30am when Alamgir, 25, was sleeping inside the bus, owned by Great Bikrampur Paribahan, parked at the Mawa launch terminal parking yard, said Abul Kalam, officer-in-charge of Louhajang Police Station.
At the burn unit of the hospital, he could barely talk as his entire face was burnt. His throat, chest and part of his stomach were also burnt, which, doctors said, made his situation critical.
Alamgir’s breathing tract was injured because of smoke inhalation, doctors said.
He was coughing out blackened mucus, his brother Anis Sheikh told The Daily Star.
Lying on a hospital bed, Alamgir, a resident of Patabhogh in Munshiganj, was not being able to remember how he had got out of the bus.
“I was sleeping inside” was all he could say.
The launch terminal’s security guard, Abdul Barek, said he had got inside the bus by breaking a window and helped the victim out. At that time Barek suffered minor injuries.
“Alamgir was banging his fists on the windows when the bus was on fire,” Barek said.
At least 48 people have been injured in arson attacks in 21 days of opposition-enforced hartals and blockades since October 26.

Fifty-year-old Jahanara at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital yesterday. Criminals late Friday night hurled a petrol bomb at the Easybike she was travelling on in Shyampur burning 27 percent of her body. Photo: Palash Khan

Meanwhile, Jahanara Begum, admitted to DMCH on Friday night, has been undergoing treatment with uncertainty as to whether she will recover and, if she recovers, who will bear her medical and living expenses.
“I am a poor hawker. I sell clothes on the streets. I have lived alone my entire life after my husband left me.
“How will I survive now? Who will take care of me? I have already borrowed Tk 5,000 for my treatment,” lamented Jahanara, who sustained 27 percent burns.
Jahanara said she had only one daughter, a housewife, to rely on for any support.
She had been burnt when blockaders hurled a petrol bomb at a battery-run auto-rickshaw she was travelling by at Shyampur in the capital on Friday.
The condition of another burn victim, Assistant Sub-inspector Nurunnabi, who had received 35 percent burns in the arson attack on a bus at Shahbagh on November 28, worsened yesterday, according to hospital sources.
The policeman is a diabetic patient and has been under observation at the intensive care unit of DMCH.