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The Dhaka Medical College Hospital authorities have been avoiding giving information about the exact number of the deaths and injured people following clashes between job quota protesters and law enforcement agencies alongwith ruling Awami League activists since July 15 that left at least 155 killed and hundreds injured in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country till Sunday.

According to DMCH ticket counter, at least 1,551 injured people, mostly with gunshot wounds, took treatment at the state-run hospital in eight days till 4:00pm on Monday. Of them, 369 people were admitted to hospital, the biggest health facility in the country.  

DMCH mortuary assistant Babul said that 70 bodies were handed over to the deceased’s relatives from July 19 to July 22. There were four more bodies in the hospital’s mortuary till Monday afternoon.

He, however, declined to make any further comment about the number of bodies received by the victims’ relatives during the violence.

During a visit to the hospital on Monday, many patients, including critical ones and children, were receiving treatment, even lying on the floors inside different wards and corridors of the hospital.

Relatives of several patients said that they were given release certificates though their treatment was not completed.      

Security personnel did not allow ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· correspondents to meet with DMCH director Asaduzzaman to get exact data on numbers of deaths, and injured people who received treatment at the health facility.

He even did not receive phone calls on the day despite repeated attempts. 

An ansar member, coming out of the director’s room, said, ‘the director is busy and will not talk to journalists.’  

He suggested to talk to emergency department’s resident surgeon Al-Amin regarding the injured people. The resident surgeon’s room at the hospital, however, was found locked at about 3:30pm.

A 11-year old schoolboy, Md Alif, sustained bullet injury in his leg as ‘law enforces opened fire indiscriminately’ while he was playing in front of his home in the capital’s Rampura area on Friday noon. 

‘He was initially taken to the Better Life Hospital by protesting students where doctors removed bullet from his leg and referred him to DMCH,’ Alif’s mother Asma Begum said, adding that the bullet broke his toe bones.

A 38 year-old mason named Shah Alam, who was receiving treatment lying on the floor of ward number 101, lost his right leg after being injured in gunshot on Friday evening.    

Recalling the incident, the father of two sons, said that he went to a house in Rayerbagh area to work on July 19 as he could not do any work for three days due to the unrest.

‘The fire incident started when I was inside the house. So, I waited inside the house till 7:00pm, then started for my house in Shonirakhra area. As I got out the main gate, something hit my knee. I touched my knee and saw blood, and became senseless,’ he said. 

‘My life has ended. What will happen to my children,’ Alam said, while weeping, mentioning that he is the only earning member of his family. 

Another bullet injured patient named Mustafa, a labour in a shoe factory in Kazla, who was admitted to the hospital on Saturday, said that the doctors released him on Monday despite he was asked to do urgent chest X-ray. 

Amid violence during the students’ protests demanding quota reform in government jobs, the government imposed countrywide curfew midnight past July 19 to protect lives of the people and property of the state.