Safwan Akhtar, 15 years old, loved to study and sing and was interested in sports and, especially, video games that would make him dream of becoming a software engineer.
He would fill the home with laughter in the sadness laced with his elder sister, Atkiya Zaman Tishma, suffering from cerebral palsy and limited speech.
The spirited boy left this world when two bullets hit him 鈥� in the right hand and the chest 鈥� near Enam Medical College Hospital at Savar in the afternoon of August 5.
He went there to celebrate the overthrow of the Awami League government amid an uprising born out of student protests that began on July 1 to push for reforms in civil service job reservations
Safwan鈥檚 father, Muhammad Aktaruzzaman, had been with him until 4:30pm that day. He returned home in Radio Colony on the CRP Road at Savar. Safwan stayed back with his friends.
As Safwan, a Class X student at the Savar Cantonment Public School and College, had not returned by 7:30pm, his father began searching for him. The father found the son, but lying dead on a stretcher at Enam Medical College Hospital two hours and a half later.
鈥楢 physician told me that he had been taken there dead about 6:00pm,鈥� said Aktaruzzaman, a deputy manager at Milk Vita, on October 30.
He was buried without a post-mortem examination in his hometown of Srirampur in Jamalpur the next day.
The death has created a void in the family. His mother, Khadija Bin Jubaid, has now stopped cooking beef khichdi that Safwan loved to eat so much.
Safwan鈥檚 father, who founded a non-profit organisation working for people with disabilities and underprivileged communities, plans to rename the organisation to keep Safwan鈥檚 memories alive.
Aktaruzzaman said that he had plans to file a complaint with the International Crimes Tribunal to seek justice for his son鈥檚 murder.
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.