‘Ma, will I survive?’

This is what 19-year-old Rabiul Islam kept asking his mother Yeasmin Akter  whenever she went to see him at the HDU unit of Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.

"Ma, will I survive? Where is my friend? Is he still alive?" he kept on asking.

Rabiul, a helper of Achhim Paribahan bus, has been suffering from excruciating pain with burns on his face and the upper parts of his body.

But still, he kept looking for his friend Nayeem, who was asleep alongside him inside a bus on Saturday night.

Arsonists set the vehicle on fire, which was parked by a road in the Paschim Deila area of Demra around 3:00am on Sunday, hours before BNP and Jamaat's dawn-to-dusk hartal began.

Nayeem, another staffer of the bus, was burnt to death. Doctors said Rabiul is not out of danger either.

"Why do they burn poor people like us?" Rabiul's mother asked while describing the ordeal of her only son.

"My son groans with pain. Seeing him covered in bandages... and crying in pain... the sight is intolerable for me. I can't stand to see my son in this state," Yeasmin told The Daily Star in the corridor of the hospital yesterday.

"In reply to his questions, I console him saying nothing would happen. I said Nayeem is doing well. He then asked me why is Nayeem not visiting him."

"I had to step away from his bed as I have no answer," Yeasmin wept.

Yeasmin, her two daughters, and a relative were talking to this correspondent, sitting on a piece of polythene on the floor.

She asked this reporter to sit but felt embarrassed as they did not have anything for him to sit on. "We did not buy any mat as we are saving every penny for my son's treatment," Yeasmin said in a broken voice.

Dressings were being put on Rabiul's burns as they were talking to this correspondent. Suddenly, Rabiul's father Hazrat Ali, a rickshaw-puller, arrived there and sat on the floor with his hands on his head.

Hazrat, 55, who suffered from stroke twice, kept saying "How will I manage the expense of my son's treatment? Everything is so expensive now."

He said the authorities told them that his son would get everything free of cost but they have already spent Tk 12,000.

"I have no savings. I borrowed the money from a relative," he said.

The family, who lives in a rented room in Demra are now preparing to sell their fridge to manage some money. Uncertainty surrounds them as they knew the money would not be enough for Rabiul's treatment.

Samanta Lal Sen, coordinator of the burn institute, said, "We can't say that Rabiul is out of danger, as his respiratory track was burnt. But his condition is improving." He said they knew that the family of the bus helper is very poor and they are providing all facilities free of cost. "They do not need to buy anything," he added.