Staff Reporter:
Tears were rolling down their cheeks. Some people were screaming, recalling the memories of the deceased, while others were silently eying here and there after being pushed into a confounded state at the emergency unit of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on Friday morning.
Family members of the victims of the devastating Green Cozy Cottage Shopping Mall fire on Bailey Road spent a nightmarish night rushing to the hospitals with the hope of finding their loved ones alive. And those who could identify the lifeless bodies of their loved ones were waiting impatiently to receive them in front of the DMCH mortuary.
Officials working at the information and service centre opened at the One-stop Emergency Centre were busy checking out necessary papers before starting the procedure of handing over the dead bodies to the family members.
A Dhaka district administration official was asking the family members of the deceased to go identify the bodies through a hand mike. Md Ashik, who was there to identify the bodies of his wife Nazia Akter and two sons, was sitting in a disoriented way.
One of his relatives was telling him to go to the mortuary, but he didn’t move for a while. He couldn’t spend much time responding to the newsmen. The luckless man seemed puzzled.
Ashik was in his office in Banani when his wife called him to say that their two sons were asking her to take them to a restaurant. He then told his wife to meet their demand. But, Ashik had no idea about the consequences.
Basona Rani Poddar, the mother of deceased Popy Podder, was fainting repeatedly there. Gripped by deep shock, she was requesting her son and son-in-law to allow her to see the faces of her daughter and two grandchildren for the last time.
“What sin have I committed that I have received such a big punishment? Everything is over. Why has this happened? Please tell me someone,” that is what the shocked mother only could say.
Her daughter had left their Shantibagh house with her two grandchildren to eat at a restaurant on Bailey Road. Their dead bodies were found at the DMCH mortuary in the morning.
Syed Mubarak Hossain, an expatriate Bangladeshi living in Italy, arranged everything to take his wife, two daughters, and a son to the European country. They were ready to go there within the next three weeks, but all five members of the family got trapped and burned to death in the Bailey Road fire.
“The family had recently obtained green cards to move to Italy, with their scheduled flight set for this month. All necessary travel documents were ready, and they had visited Kacchi Bhai restaurant for a farewell dinner, but fate had thought otherwise,” Syed Gausul Azam, a relative of Syed Mubarak Hossain, told the Daily Sun.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) student Lamisha Islam requested her father Nasirul Islam Shamim to save her as she got trapped in the Baily Road fire, but her father, who is an Additional Deputy Inspector General of Police, could do nothing for her.
Lamisha’s paternal uncle Rafiqul Islam Sumon said Lamisha and her friends went to a restaurant on Baily Road for dinner after visiting the book fair on Thursday night.
The victims have gone forever, but their family members will bear the agony. The debris from the seven-storey building will be removed, and new businesses will be busy maintaining their ledgers and stocks of goods, but the lives of the family members of the victims will never be the same.
