Two more burnt after a break

Wife Saleha tries to comfort vegetables trader Alamgir, whose entire face got burnt when criminals hurled a petrol bomb at a pickup he was travelling on in Gazipur on Wednesday night. Photo: Palash Khan

They groan as they breathe and it looks as if their energy is diminishing bit by bit at the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.  
Mohammad Alamgir Hossain and Mohammad Lokman, two vegetable traders, fell prey to a petrol bomb attack on the pick-up they were travelling by on Wednesday around 10:30pm.

The skin of vegetables trader Lokman's face melted off after a petrol bomb landed on his face in Gazipur on Wednesday night when he was in a pickup. Photo: Palash Khan

Neither of them suffered burns on more than 10 percent of their bodies, but what pushed them into danger was their breathing tracks getting badly injured, doctors said. Their faces and necks were also burnt.
Alamgir had stayed at home for days in fear of such attacks by blockaders, his wife Saleha Begum said. But since last week did not see much violence, he thought it was now safe to move.
Alamgir, though with difficulty, tried to narrate how the attack took place.
They were sitting in the rear of the vehicle carrying vegetables that they wanted to sell at markets. As they reached Mouchak in Gazipur, a bomb struck Lokman's face and exploded, setting the two men alight.
That was evident from the wounds in Lokman's face. The top layer of his skin peeled off, revealing the soft pinkish layer underneath.

Driver of the pickup Moksed, also received burn injuries but he was released from the burn unit of DMCH yesterday. Photo: Palash Khan

He was wheezing. Every word coming out of his lips was in fervent prayer to God.
Lokman's wife Mosammat Sabila Khatun was weeping under her veil non-stop. She seemed inconsolable.
The driver of the vehicle, Mokhsed    Ali, 31, suffered five percent burns. He has been released after  treatment.
Meanwhile, Rehana Akhter Kajol, 30, was brought into Dhaka Medical College Hospital that night after a cocktail hit her, blowing away a chuck of the muscle on her right shoulder.
"She was in a rickshaw with her cousin when a cocktail was thrown at them," said her husband Mohammad Billal, a wholesale trader at Nawabganj.
The incident happened near Nilkhet in the capital at 8:30pm as Rehana was returning home in Kamrangir Chor from Jatrabari.
She requires immediate plastic surgery, without which her wounds will not recover, doctors said.
"The injury is so deep that the bone is exposed," Billal said.
He clings to the hope that she will recover. As he says, "It could have been worse. I am glad her head was not hit. She might not have lived.