Liza, a 21-year-old household services worker, was shot in the abdomen as on hearing gunshots, she rushed onto the seventh-floor balcony of a building in the Shantinagar crossing in Dhaka in the afternoon on July 18.
Her battle for life ended in the intensive care unit of Popular Medical College Hospital in the afternoon on July 22.
The student protests which began on July 1 demanding reforms in civil service job reservations turned violent two days ago, with the law enforcers and Awami League people firing into the protesters. The protest later flared up into a mass uprising, toppling the Awami League government on August 5.
Her father Md Joynal, a 65-year-old farmer, and her mother Yanur, a housewife, who live at Deula Shibpur of Borhanuddin in Bhola, could not travel to Dhaka see their daughter for the last time because of the curfew ordered on July 20.
鈥楾hey could not get over the grief,鈥� said Md Rakib, Liza鈥檚 elder brother, on October 18. Rakib, a mason, could not also visit Liza on July 18.
鈥業 had walked for four hours the next morning to reach Aurora Specialised Hospital at Karail,鈥� said Rakib, who works in the Bashundhara residential area. Liza was still conscious. 鈥楽he looked at me. Tears rolled down her cheek as I called her by name. She perhaps wanted to say something but could not utter any words,鈥� Rakib said.
Liza, the fifth of seven children, moved to Dhaka about eight years ago to support the family. She was pious and was fasting the day she was shot, Rakib said. Liza was shifted to Popular Medical College Hospital on July 21, where she died after a surgery.
The family took her body without a post-mortem examination. She was buried in her hometown on July 23.
Liza鈥檚 father filed a murder case with the Ramna police as instructed by the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, Rakib said. He could not recall the date of the filing or any other details.
Jamaat-e-Islami gave the family Tk 200,000 after Liza鈥檚 death. The Directorate General of Health Services on September 24 said that it had listed 708 people having died in the protests and uprising.
The health affairs sub-committee of the Students against Discrimination on September 28, however, said that the figure was 1,581.
