Two more truckers injured
Two more truckers injured
Two more truckers were burnt in Dhaka and Gazipur last night as blockaders set fire to their trucks on the third day of the 83-hour blockade enforced by the opposition combine.
Quamrul Islam with 34 percent burns and Nazrul Islam with 20 percent were admitted to the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Quamrul, 35, was burnt when his paper-laden truck was set afire at Nayabazar in the capital at around 8:30pm.
Police said blockaders hurled a petrol bomb on the truck when it was parked for unloading and the driver was caught in the blaze.
Nazrul, 27, sustained burns when blockaders hurled a petrol bomb targeting the rice-laden truck at Shafipur in Kaliakoir upazila of Gazipur.
The helper, who also sustained minor injuries, said they were going from Dinajpur to Chittagong and when they reached Shafipur, a group of four to five people hurled a petrol bomb inside the driver's compartment.
As fire erupted inside his compartment, the driver lost control and the truck veered off the highway and fell in a ditch, said helper Nuruzzaman.
Doctors said Nazrul suffered burns in his respiratory organs and while Quamrul in the lower part of his body.
Meanwhile, the condition of truck driver Shaheen and his helper Majedul had not improved much as of yesterday, doctors said.
Shaheen and Majedul were admitted to the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Sunday, Shaheen with 70 percent burns and Majedul with 90 percent burns.
They were injured in Sirajganj on Saturday night, when blockaders hurled a petrol bomb at their truck carrying vegetables from Naogaon to Comilla.
Doctors said the two, who were seen at the hospital's High Dependency Unit yesterday afternoon, were in critical condition with damaged respiratory organs.
Majedul could only wheeze and utter broken sentences that were barely audible.
“They just burnt me and I don't know why,” he murmured.
Attending to him at the hospital, Majedul's sister Sumi said, “He had no enmity with those who set him on fire.”
“Our parents in Naogaon have been restless since they heard the news, but could not come to Dhaka because of the blockade,” she grieved.
Majedul was asking for painkillers as the nurse pushed an injection into his waist. He calmed, but started tossing about in pain barely ten munities later and asked for more medicines.
“Give me some sleeping pills so that I can sleep and don't have to wake up again,” he murmured to a relative.
Also critical was the condition of Shaheen, who could only stare blankly at the wall, his face burnt and eyes half-closed.
He could not sleep most of the time since the incident, said his cousin Khalilur Rahman.
Shaheen had joined work the day he came under attack, he said, adding that Shaheen needed to step out of home to provide for his family.
Meanwhile, Geeta Sen, who had sustained 11 percent burns in an arson attack in Shahbagh, was improving again.
She had improved once before, following which she was discharged from the hospital on December 5. She was re-admitted there a week ago, as her condition deteriorated at home.
Partha Shankar Paul, resident surgeon of the burn unit, said she might have been infected at home.