Ctg auto driver loses 15-day battle for life

The wife and child of auto-rickshaw driver Aziz at Dhaka Medical College morgue. Aziz's vehicle was torched with a petrol bomb on December 1, during the opposition-called blockade in Chittagong, giving him severe burns. He had been moved to the burn unit of DMCH but he died of his injuries early yesterday. Photo: Courtesy

Mohammad Abdul Aziz was supposed to return home in Chittagong on the night of December 1 as usual. But he returned 15 days later as a corpse.
The 50-year-old driver of a CNG-run auto-rickshaw died at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital around 4:30am yesterday.
He had suffered burns over 35 percent of his body when blockaders hurled a petrol bomb at his auto-rickshaw at Hathazari upazila in Chittagong on that day.
“He wanted to live -- he wanted to go back home,” said his wife Munni Begum at the DMCH burn unit.
Aziz was initially admitted to Chittagong Medical College Hospital (CMCH), and was shifted to DMCH on December 3 for better treatment.
Doctors at DMCH said the fire had damaged his respiratory organs.
He was driving to his Langal Mora home in the upazila after the day's work when he came under attack in Battali area, Aziz had told The Daily Star at the CMCH.
The auto-rickshaw was the only source of income for his five-member family. Aziz had borrowed from a friend to

buy the vehicle three years ago, and was repaying the money in instalments, said his elder brother Kamal Uddin.
“His death means that his son and two daughters will be left in a state of destitution,” he added.
Over the last one week, he was seen lying at the DMCH intensive care unit with an oxygen mask, his face burnt and blackened.
Because of the burns to the windpipe, Aziz had difficulty breathing and had been wheezing in the last few days.
His relatives, who came to take his body to Chittagong, stressed that he was not involved in politics, and that he did not deserve to die like this.
Fourteen victims of political violence, including Aziz, have died at the burn unit since October 26, when the BNP-led opposition alliance began to enforce back-to-back hartals and blockades.