Md Rustum, 14 years old, argued with his parents at night on July 18 about his having joined student protests that demanded reforms in civil service job reservations.
It all began after he had been hit with a rubber bullet in the chest at the protests at Mirpur 10 in Dhaka earlier in the day.
His parents, Md Main Uddin, a tailor, and Sufia Begum, an apparel worker, tried to stop him from joining the protests.
Rustum retorted, 鈥楢ll parents love their children. If all the parents stop their children, who will rise up in protests?鈥�
That was last he spoke to his parents, his elder sister, Kulsum Akter Bristy, who completed higher secondary schooling this year, said on November 7.
A bullet pierced through his throat about 5:35pm near the Mirpur 10 crossing when protests were on the next day.
鈥楬e did not have his dinner that night. Our parents did not speak to him the next day. It broke them down,鈥� Kulsum said.
When the rest of the family were asleep around noon on July 19, Rustum tried to sneak out of their rented house at Mirpur 2.
Sensing that he was going out, his mother, who was half-awake, asked him not to join the protests. Rustum assured her that he would not go, but he did.
After he had been shot, he was taken to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital where he was pronounced dead about 7:00pm.
He was buried without a post-mortem examination in his village, Raipura, in Narsindi the next day.
Rustum, a Class IX student of National Bangla High School, dreamt of becoming a famous football player.
His father promised to enrol him with a football club once Rustum would complete his secondary schooling.
The couple have another son, Md jisan, a Class VII student. Rustum was the second of their three children.
Kulsum said that political parties were pressuring them to file a murder case, but the family has yet to make a decision.
The family received Tk 200,000 from the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami after Rustum鈥檚 death.
Kulsum said that law enforcers and Awami League people had fired gunshots indiscriminately into the protests, even from the metro rail station, at Mirpur 10 the day Rustum died. She heard it from others.
The student protests which spanned July 1 toppled the Awami League government on August 5 after it had flared into an uprising.
The Directorate General of Health Services on September 24 said that its preliminary investigation had listed 708 people having died in the protests and uprising.
