Shooters mourn Pakhi
Hundreds of relatives and mourners laid South Asian Games gold medal-winning shooter Firoz Hossain Pakhi, who along with his three-year-old daughter Pushpita and domestic help Aina died in a fatal road accident, to rest at Arifpur graveyard here on Wednesday night.
Pakhi was the country's fourth renowned athlete after SA Games gold-winning sprinters Shah Alam and Mahbub Alam and Test cricketer Manjarul Islam Rana to have met a fatal end in road mishaps.
Shah Alam, twice SA Games' fastest man, died in a motorcycle accident on May 29, 1990. Mahbub Alam, SA Games' 200m gold medalist, died in a car accident in Dhaka on December 4, 2010 while Test cricketer Manjarul Islam, along with his Khulna teammate Sajjadul Islam Setu, was killed in a motorcycle accident in Khulna on March 16, 2007.
Pakhi, after spending the eid vacation in his village home, had started for Dhaka in his car with his family on Wednesday morning. But a truck from the opposite direction in Banpara upazila of Natore hit their vehicle head-on, leaving the three dead.
Earlier, a lot of people attended his namaz-e-janaja. Renowned shooters Saiful Alam Rinki, Asif Hossain Khan, Sharmin Akhter, Sabrina Sultana and Sharmin Akhter Ratna were present to mourn the untimely death of Pakhi, who was working as a coach.
The shooters urged the government to ensure road safety across the country and take proper initiatives to prevent road accidents.
"He was an icon in the country and I still can't think of such accident which took him away from us and it is an
unbearable pain for us," said Asif, the SA Games and Commonwealth Games gold medalist.
"We don't want to see any more shooters die in road accident and the government should take proper measures to prevent road accidents," said Ratna, gold medalist shooter in SA Games and Commonwealth Shooting Championships.
Pakhi's wife Lovely Chowdhury Ankhi, herself a SA Games gold-winning shooter, was also injured in the accident and was released from the Pabna Sadar Hospital Wednesday night after treatment, but she was not in any mood to talk after the irreparable losses.
"Give my son back," cried Pakhi's 80-year-old mother Shaila Begum.
"The death of Pakhi bhai was not only a great loss to our family, but also a permanent damage to the country's shooting. We don't want to see any citizen die in road accident anymore," said Pakhi's younger brother Salim Hossain, demanding exemplary punishment to the culprit driver.
Meanwhile police was yet to identify the culprit driver after the highway police filed a case with Gurudaspur thana.
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