Voice that captured public mood
The conversations below took place between a burn victim named Gita Sen and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on December 1. They have been translated from a report published in the daily Prothom Alo on December 2.
Burnt by a petrol bomb during a blockade, Gita Sen vents her anger and frustrations at the confrontational politics of the ruling and the opposition parties when the prime minister visited the burn victims at the DMCH on December 1. Photo: Courtesy
“We have made you what you are; you have not made us. We live on our husbands' earnings … you are playing games with us. We want a good government and not an ailing one.”
Gita Sen, who suffered burns during an opposition-enforced blockade, said this to the prime minister while unloading her agonies over the ongoing violent attacks in the name of political programmes.
The prime minister went to see the burn victims at the DMCH on December 1. As she was enquiring about the patients' condition and consoling them, Gita burst out in tears. The journalists present recorded the conversations between Gita and the PM.
Gita: Please identify the culprits who had hurled bombs at us, and burn those who had ordered them [to do so]. They can only order, but they cannot protect us. For us you are the government.
PM: I have never seen or experienced this…
Gita: We want a good government and not an ill one. Please make the opponents agree, and please unite and protect us.
PM: Killing people by burning them cannot be called political activism … not at all. I have seen many demonstrations and protests in my life but nothing of this nature -- killing by burning.
Gita: The ones who call hartal … let all the things [that happen during hartal] happen to their families. Please do this to them.
PM: Please have patience…
Gita: No sister… my …
PM: We are here …
Gita: My husband cannot afford my treatment.
PM: We will arrange what's needed for your treatment, I'm doing and whenever I get the news…
Gita: I don't have a son … I have two daughters and who is going to look after them …
PM: Please don't cry.
Gita: We want a good government not a sick one… a good, not a sick one.
PM: This is government's…
Gita: We don't want to bring up our children in this situation. We don't want to be affected any more. We want a good government. Why do they harm us? We have done nothing. We were just travelling, and don't even know who the attackers were. Neither we know Khaleda nor do we go to Hasina. We stay with our own families. Even then, why they attack us? Please do justice to us. Please be even-handed. We cannot tolerate any more. So many of us are here and all of us are injured. Now whenever I see fire I shudder as if flames are about to swallow me. The politicians don't realise our pain and sorrows.
Gita Sen's husband is an electrician. They live along with their two daughters in Old Dhaka's Laxmibazar. The couple's youngest daughter Sushmita Sen works as a young journalist for private channel ETV's 'Mukta Khobor'. Gita was taking her daughter to the ETV office on November 28 when their bus came under an arson attack. Nineteen including Gita and her daughter Sushmita were burnt.
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