‘We have meals on alternate days’

Samiul Islam

The country's fastest teenage sprinter Samiul Islam and his family have fallen upon hard times in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a countrywide shutdown that has hit Samiul on multiple levels.

Apart from winning the 100m sprint in the 18-19 age-group of the 35 National Junior Athletics Championships, clocking 11.41 seconds (electronic timing) in October 2019, Samiul is often called Kylian Mbappe for his nippy runs up front when going to Khulna to play in leagues as a hired striker.

With an income of Tk 1,850 per week as a temporary labour at Khulna's Crescent Jute Mills, under Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC), and through sporadic earnings from football, Samiul and his family were more or less content. However, losing his BJMC job in December 2019 and the subsequent suspension of sport countrywide have thrown them into a state of despair.

"We are not in a good position as we have been spending days almost without food. To be honest, with what the situation of the country is at the moment, we are taking meals on alternative days because we are a family of six with the father unable to do hard labour due to his back pain. Meanwhile, I don't have a job at BJMC and can't earn money playing football. Besides, I could also work as a farm hand on the field but there is no work at the moment," Samiul told The Daily Star over phone from Khulna yesterday.

"It would make a big difference to us at the moment if we had the job at BJMC. Because, we could have at least met the basic necessities at a time when everyone is struggling to feed their family," said Samiul, one of 273 athletes working as temporary labour, but all of them were terminated by BJMC in December last year as part of cutbacks as a result of losses incurred by the state-run corporation.

Samiul's family is now being run with a little income from his father, who is selling diesel to farmers at a profit of Tk 3 per litre.

"Having played football, I managed some money for my disadvantaged father, who is now selling some 40 to 50 litres of diesel a day to farmers in this harvesting season, apart from selling pigeon feed. Our family is surviving on an overall income of Tk 150 per day and through the money I saved from playing football," said the 20-year-old athlete, who said that he earned between Tk 200 and Tk 2,000 per match and around Tk 7,000 to Tk 8,000 per month during the football season.

After becoming the fastest teenager in the junior meet, Samiul got an offer from Bangladesh Army to play for them on a temporary contract, but the sprinter refused the Army job as he had the BJMC job then.        

"After losing the BJMC job, I haven't had the chance to continue as a sprinter and I am likely to leave athletics permanently and play full-time football, as I can earn from it and bear the educational expenses of my three younger siblings -- two sisters and a brother," said Samiul, who hails from Digholia Upazila of Khulna. 

The country's former fastest woman and BJMC coach Sultana Parveen Lovely had spotted Samiul from the remote area and trained him to compete at the national level.

"He was an obedient athlete from an underprivileged family and he had been doing really well. Although Samiul won the 100m sprint in junior championships, he was actually better in the 400m run. We could have made him a good sprinter had we given him more time and had BJMC not terminated him," said Lovely, adding that Samiul joined BJMC in the middle of 2017 and left BJMC in December, 2019.