He was almost home to his Ma

Dhiraj had it all figured out: how to surprise his mother with a new smart phone.

He travelled more than 250km from Dhaka to his home district Khagrachhari to hand it over to her in person during the Eid holidays. Yesterday morning, he was almost home, just about 15km to go. 

Dhiraj Chakma did not make it home. He died after getting caught up in a gun attack in Swanirvar Market area in the town around 8:30am whilst waiting for a three-wheeler to take him to Panchari. 

The new phone was found in his bag.

“Look, how good it is! It is for mother,” Mammon Chakma quoted his brother as saying in Dhaka, just a day before Dhiraj's death.

“My brother even got me to install some messaging apps in the phone so that our mother could make video calls to us,” said Mammon, a student of Barisal University.

Mammon arrived at his brother's house in Mirpur, Dhaka, from Barisal on Wednesday so that they could go home together.

As they could not get tickets on the same day, Dhiraj, a textile engineer, left for Khagrachhari Friday night and Mammon last night.

“Had we been together, I could have done something for my brother,” Mammon lamented while talking to The Daily Star.

Dhiraj was kind, benevolent, and involved in social welfare activities, including blood donation, the brother said.

Apart from Dhiraj, three more bystanders were killed when gunmen opened fire at two places in Khagrachhari town yesterday.