Gangacharan Rajbangshi, a car driver, was on his way back home at Badda in Dhaka in the evening of July 18, as he used to do on any other day.
Before leaving his office near Chowdhury Abul Hotel at Badda, the 58-year-old man called his elder son, Mithu Rajbangshi injured in an accident, to check on his condition.
But, Gangacharan could not return home. He was shot in the chest near the Television Centre at Rampura about 7:30pm.
Clashes broke out after the Television Centre had been set on fire during student protests demanding reforms in civil service job reservations.
Some unnamed people left the body in front of Multicare Hospital near by and called using his mobile to let the family know of the incident.
The family later found the body lying there. The hospital authorities refused to examine the body without police clearance and advised the family to take the body to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
鈥榃e ran to police stations at Badda, Rampura and Meradia for clearance. There were no police personnel anywhere as the stations had been attacked and burnt,鈥� Mithu said on November 10.
They could not take the body to Dhaka Medical College Hospital because the situation on the road was tense. 鈥榃e did not want to lose any other member of the family,鈥� he said.
Gangacharan was cremated at Postagola in Old Town the next day, without any post-mortem examination and death certificate.
鈥楳y mother had a mild stroke. We could know of it a few days after it had happened. She still can鈥檛 come to terms with the death,鈥� said Mithu, 35 years old.
The family lives in a rented two-room, tin-shed house and has no landed property. Mithu works as an assistant of an AC repairman, a friend of his, earning an average of Tk 700鈥�800 a day.
鈥業 get to work for 10 days a month,鈥� he said. His brother, Bishwajit Rajbongshi, 25 years old, was sent to Qatar in October.
Mithu鈥檚 injury in the accident left the family of five, including Mithu鈥檚 wife, wholly dependent on Gangacharan. The death of the sole earner left the family in trauma and distress.
The family received Tk 150,000 in assistance from the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The family borrowed Tk 250,000 to send Bishwajit on an overseas job.
The protests, held since July 1, flared up into a mass uprising towards the end of the month and overthrew the Awami League government on August 5.
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.
