Ovi may not wake up again

The bomb landed right on his face, badly wounding the left side and "blowing off" part of the cheek. An eleventh grader, who was supporting his education working part-time in a computer service shop, Ovi has been unconscious ever since. Doctors are not sure he will wake up again.

Noor Jahan, his mother who lost the eldest of her three children only three months ago, prayed, “If something terrible happens to him I hope he'd at least wake up and say a few words to me.”

She always feared arsons and vandalism, in the ongoing political tension. “What have they achieved through his misfortune? Will it help their movement?” she kept asking visitors, between sobs, at Dhaka Medical College Hospital where Sanjid Hossain Ovi is admitted.

The 19-year-old, studying at Kabi Nazrul Government College, was going to Bangabazar around 8:00pm Wednesday when unidentified miscreants hurled the cocktail.

Witnesses said a portion of Ovi's face was “blown off”.

Doctors feared that the injuries might turn out to be fatal.

The son of a street vendor of the capital's Laxmibazar, Ovi achieved good grades in school, and was dreaming of lifting his family out of poverty and serving the disadvantaged people someday.

“He always said the poor people of the country couldn't get access to legal support and wanted to be a lawyer to help them out,” Noor Jahan said. “He achieved GPA 5 in both JSC and SSC exams.”

Since his father, Delwar Hossain, who sells snacks at Sadarghat launch terminal, could not afford to pay for his education, Ovi worked as an assistant in a computer service shop three hours a day.

 “We can't afford to continue his treatment beyond a couple of days. We have nothing. There are no savings; we live from hand to mouth,” his mother said. Ovi's father has already spent several thousand taka on medicines medical tests, and has only a few thousand left.

His elder sister Salma, 20, died while giving birth to a child. Noor Jahan said, “We are raising the newborn since she died. We were broke but we knew that Ovi would make us proud someday.”