Motiar came from a poor, broken family

Motiar Rahman's parents were divorced when he was only two. Raised by a single mother and hard pressed by poverty, he dropped out of school before he could complete class-III.

His mother along with him left his father's house and moved to her brothers' and then to his aunt's in Gazipur. None of the families who gave them shelter were financially solvent, said his father's neighbours at Omarpur village in Tala upazila of the district.

The name of the boy who grew up to become 23-year old came up in the media as one of the nine militants killed during Tuesday's raid in the early hours by law enforcers in the capital's Kalyanpur.

Over the last few months, he had little contact with anybody in his family, relatives said.

Following the divorce, Motiar's mother Khairunnessa took him to the house in Tala upazila, where her three brothers live together. There they lived until the boy turned 12.

Khairunnessa with her son then moved to Dhaka to work at a garment factory, said Motiar's father Nasir Uddin Gazi.

She went to Saudi Arabia a couple of months ago for work. Her brothers said they could not contact her after the incident.   

One and a half years ago, Motiar stopped communication with his mother, said his maternal uncle Abdus Sattar.

Around the same time he went back to his father's place and lived with him for five months. During the period, Motiar worked in the village as day labourer. On June 30 last year, he left the village, saying he would find a job in Dhaka and settle there, his father Nasir said.

Nasir, a fisherman, got married and divorced five times. Motiar was the first child from his first marriage.

Although his son was a voter, he never went to the village to cast his vote, Nasir said. 

Motiar's father was terribly shocked when he saw in the media that Motiar was one of the militants killed in the operation “Storm26”, and fainted repeatedly yesterday.

Rafiqul Islam, a neighbour of Nasir, said Motiar had a beard when he was living at his father's house and used to be quiet most of the time.

“He called me about a month ago and said he was working at a sweater factory and living at his aunt's house in Gazipur,” Nasir said.

The district's Superintendent of Police, Altaf Hossain told journalists that Satkhira police had no criminal record of Motiar.