Daughter's fight for a hero's due

As February 28 nears every year, Dorothi sets out to do something she has been doing for almost a decade.

A resident of Barisal, she shuttles from one newspaper office to another in her city, requesting the news managers to publish a story on her father.

Nusrat Jahan Ibrahim Dorothi was only six months old when her father, HM Ibrahim Selim, sacrificed his life for a great cause: restoration of democracy in the country.

On this day in 1984, Selim and Kazi Delwar Hossain, two Dhaka University Chhatra League leaders, were killed after a police truck ploughed into a student demonstration near Gulistan.

The students were protesting against a decision of the autocratic Ershad regime to hold upazila elections. 

"The society forgets their contribution. I'm doing this to let our new generation know that the streets of Dhaka were stained with the blood of my father," an emotional Dorothi told this correspondent recently.

"I want to let the new generation know that this much-cherished democracy was restored at the cost of their lives.

“I was just six months old....I have no memory of my father. I have learnt all about him from my mother,” she said.

Born in 1954 in Najirpur village of Patuakhali's Bauphal upazila, Selim got involved with left-leaning Chhatra Union in his student life. Later, he got admitted to Dhaka University and joined Chhatra League. 

In the coming years, he became joint convenor of the DU Chhatra League and a member of the student organisation's central committee.

“My father was not only a good student leader but also a good footballer. Most importantly, he was a good human being,” Dorothi said.

Ibrahim got married in 1982 and Dorothi was born the next year.

The same year, Ershad regime faced the first major protest against it. Jafar, Dipali Saha, Zainal, Mozammel, Ayub Kanchan and several others were shot to death during a massive student protest against the education policy of the regime on February 14, 1983.

During that time, Ershad announced the schedule for the upazila elections, which apparently aimed at strengthening his grip on the grassroots politics.

It fuelled the anti-Ershad movement.

The then opposition parties, including Awami League and BNP, and different student organisations joined the protest hand in hand.

As part of the demonstrations, Chhatra Sangram Parishad, a platform of progressive student organisations, announced that it would hold a peaceful procession on February 28, writer Prasanta Mridha said in an article published in Bangla daily Prothom Alo recently.

The student leaders decided to bring out the procession from the DU campus and end it at the same place after marching through Bangabazar, Phulbaria, Gulistan and secretariat areas.

When the procession reached Phulbaria, police put barricades on both ends of the road. Selim and Delwar were at the back of the procession, said the writer.

A police truck came from a road beside the nearby fire brigade office and started to follow the students.

“All of a sudden, the truck ploughed into the procession, killing Ibrahim Selim and Ibrahim Hossain on the spot,” Prasanta wrote in the article.

Selim was a fourth-year history and Delwar was a third year political science student.

This incident boosted the anti-government movement. Following the supreme sacrifice by many others, including Dr Milon, Noor Hossain and Asad, Ershad had to step down in December, 1990, staying in power for almost a decade.

Later, the country switched to the parliamentary democracy from the presidential form of government.

However, the family of Selim was still dismayed by his death.

Due to financial crisis, his wife, Nasima Jahan, then a final-year honours student, had to stop her studies and start living with her parents in Barisal.

“I too could not study after class IX for money problem and some family issues,” Dorothi said.

She later passed her SSC and HSC examinations from Bangladesh Open University. In 2012, she got a fourth-class job in Barisal University.

Living in Barisal with her mother, the 33-year-old sometimes visits her father's house in Bauphal.

“My paternal uncle grabbed our land and misbehaves with us, if we go there. Yet, he is involved with the local Awami League and has become the union parishad chairman, using my father's name,” she said.

Contacted, Ibrahim Faruk, chairman of Najirpur Union Parishad, refuted the allegations.

Despite these issues, Dorothi, who is also involved with several cultural organisations in Barisal, keeps trying her best so that people remember her father for what he did.

In December last year and this January, she gave photographs of her father to the Barisal divisional museum and the national museum in Dhaka.

On January 18, Dorothi submitted an application to the mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation, demanding that the road on which Selim and Delwar were killed be named after them.

“Our honourable prime minister and some other people still remember them and their contributions. However, society has forgotten them. I am doing this to let everyone know about them.” 

The man behind the brutal deaths in the 1980s, Ershad, the former military dictator, is still very much active in the country's political arena. He is the chief of Jatiya Party and also a special adviser to the PM.

Jatiya Party is the opposition in parliament and three of its lawmakers are members of the cabinet of the AL-led government.

Asked how she feels about it, Dorothi said, “What can I say? I won't say anything. Allah will try him [Ershad].”

“As far as I know, no case was filed in connection with my father's death,” she said, adding, “What shall it bring even if a case is filed?”