Unbearable loss strikes twice
Kabir Hossain and his wife Laizu Begum were still reeling from the shock of losing their eleven-and-a-half-year-old daughter Anila, who passed away around eight months ago after battling kidney diseases for long.
And yesterday, another tragedy struck the couple.
Their sixteen-day-old son, Mohammad Abdullah, died after he fell on the ground from his aunt's arms being hit in the face by a piece of brick on Jonaki Road in the capital's Mirpur-1.
Holding Abdullah, his aunt Tamim Sultana was standing in an alley in front of their tin-shed house when a three-and-half-year-old child accidentally dropped a brick from the roof of an adjacent three-storey building, said Dadon Fakir, officer-in-charge of Mirpur Police Station.
The accident happened around 10:00am when the child was playing with another boy on the roof, he said.
Sultana is a ninth grader at a school in Barishal's Hizla upazila. She came to Mirpur on December 26, the day when Abdullah was born. She said she took the baby out in the sun as he was showing symptoms of jaundice.
The brick hit her head first and then the child who fell on the ground, she said, adding, she took primary treatment.
The OC said the baby was rushed to Dhaka Shishu Hospital at Sher-e- Bangla Nagar and was later referred to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where he died around 1:30pm.
Abdullah's uncle Rashed Sardar said Kabir, a driver by profession, and Laizu were devastated after the death of their fourth grader daughter who had been suffering from kidney diseases for around nine years.
“They had just started to recover after the birth of Abdullah. But then, this happened,” he said, adding that the couple has only a daughter, Lamia, 5, left.
Laizu faced complications when Abdullah was born. The baby was kept at Dhaka Shishu Hospital and taken home on Monday.
Visiting the spot yesterday, this correspondent learnt that some children play on the roof of the three-storey building every day.
Locals said the parents should be careful while their children stay on the roof over safety reasons.
Contacted over phone, the grieving father said, “Locals are trying to compensate me for the incident. But what would I do with the money? Can money compensate my loss?”
An unnatural death case was filed with Mirpur Police Station.
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