Staff Reporter:
Motorbike-riding snatchers forcefully pulled on the vanity bag of a woman on a rickshaw in the capital’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area earlier this week, causing her to fall down and eventually succumb to a severe head injury.
Soheli Islam, 42, died while undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Dhanmondi on Thursday morning, four days after the snatching attack.
Her funeral prayers were held at her maternal grandfather’s home in Paschim Tengri area of Ishwardi upazila, Pabna later in the afternoon. Her relatives are planning legal measures over the incident.
Soheli had separated from her husband 15 years ago, and was striving to build a life for her university-going girl, her only child.
She was employed as a medical service officer at Eskayef Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
Soheli’s maternal uncle Sarwar Parvez told reporters that she, along with her daughter, had come to visit Parbatipur in Dinajpur a few days back to attend the wedding ceremony of a relative. On Saturday night, she left for Dhaka, and the next dawn reached Gabtoli in the capital.
A few minutes later, she and her daughter boarded a rickshaw towards their rented home at Green Road in Dhanmondi.
Soon after crossing the Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital in Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, two snatchers on a motorbike pursued the rickshaw.
The back-seat rider grabbed on Soheli’s vanity bag and started violently pulling at it. Caught off balance, Soheli fell down to the road. Her right hand fractured, and blood started gushing out from the back of her head and ears.
Soheli’s brother-in-law, Tariqul Islam, said he called for help from locals and pedestrians, but initially none responded. Later, he with the help of the rickshaw puller, and a local rushed Soheli to the Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital.
From there, she was shifted to the National Institute of Neuroscience and Hospital, and later to a private hospital in Dhanmondi.
But it was already too late, and she succumbed to the head injury on Thursday morning.
