Asma stared at a photograph, mounted in an album that she spread out, sitting on the bed in a rented one-room house at Dayaganj in Dhaka on September 9.
It was his son鈥檚. Md Ismail Hossen Rabbi, 17 years old, was shot dead during the student-mass uprising at Shahbagh in Dhaka at about 5:15pm on August 4.
A witness, later, informed the family to say that 鈥楻abbi was shot in the forehead when he was trying to help a wounded man to get on a rickshaw.鈥�
Rabbi, who enrolled on an electronic engineering diploma course at the Shariatpur Polytechnic Institute after his secondary examinations in 2024, left the house at about 1:00pm that day to join the protests when none of the family was around.
Out of the house, he ran into his father, Miraj, a van driver, and he lied about his intention. He told his father that he would be roaming about. 鈥榃hy didn鈥檛 I stop Rabbi that day?鈥� his father lamented.
The family did not want him to join the protests, more because he was still not physically fit after having been injured with rubber bullets at Shahbagh on July 19.
His parents now have two daughters. Mitu Akter has been married off. The younger Mim Akter, a master鈥檚 student, lives with them.
As Rabbi had not returned by 9:00pm, his parents and the younger sister went out, looking for him in the neighbourhood all night. They finally found him lying dead in the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue at around 11:30am the next day.
鈥業 can鈥檛 describe what I am going through. He was the apple of our eye. We鈥檇 never done anything that could make him feel the pain,鈥� Asma said, with tears rolling down her cheeks.
The family was much anguished when they watched a video that showed protesters carrying Rabbi and three others, all dead, towards the Central Shaheed Minar on August 4.
鈥業f we had found the body that day, my child wouldn鈥檛 have had to lie alone in the morgue for so long,鈥� Asma said.
Rabbi鈥檚 father cannot drive his van every day as he has breathing problems. His mother earns Tk 1,500 a month by giving tuition. The sole breadwinner in the family is his sister Mim, who makes Tk 10,000 a month from teaching.
The family now wants the state to recognise Rabbi as a martyr and a job for the daughter.
The government on August 28 said that about 1,000 people had died in student protests that peaked into a mass uprising, toppling the Awami League government on August 5.