Bullet hits little Ahad in the eye and lodges in his head

Four-year-old Ahad was standing in the verandah in between his parents. All three of them were looking downstairs at skirmishes that had broken out between protesters calling for quota reforms and the police and Chhatra League. Suddenly Ahad fell to the floor.

His father Abul Hasan thought he had perhaps slipped and fell, but froze when he reached down to lift him up. There was blood everywhere, in Ahad's eyes, face, head, all over. A bullet had hit Ahad in the eye and was lodged in his head.

This incident took place on the evening of 19 July, Friday, at a house in Rayerbagh of Jatrabari in the capital. Abul Hasan lives with his wife Shumi Akhter and their sons Matubbar (11) and Ahad. A senior assistant of the income tax department, Abul Hasan is from Pukhuria village of Manikdaha union, Bhanga upazila, Faridpur.

Hasan rushed downstairs with his son covered in blood. Armed men came forward and halted him, but later moved aside when they saw his son's condition. Speaking to Prothom Alo on Wednesday, Hasan's brother Mukhlesur Rahman said that Ahad was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital and kept on life support in the intensive care unit (ICU).

The physicians on duty said the bullet was lodged in his head but it would require a CT scan to determine its exact position. However, Ahad would have to be disconnected from the ICU equipment to undergo a CT scan but that would put his life at risk. At the same time, a CT scan was urgent.

Mukhlesur Rahman said that around 8:30pm the next day, Saturday, Ahad was declared dead while under treatment in the ICU. The family collected the little boy's body at 3:00pm Sunday afternoon after the post mortem was performed. They then took the body to their village Pukhuria in Bhanga by ambulance. Ahad was laid to rest there in the family graveyard. "Actually there was no family graveyard there before," said an emotional Mukhlesur Rahman, "It has started with Ahad being laid to rest."

Speaking over mobile phone, Abul Hasan said, "My son has left us in an unexpected incident. What more can I say. I didn't want a post mortem, I didn't want his little body to be cut up any further. But we couldn't stop it."

Over 200 persons have been killed in clashes and violence over the last few days during the movement for reforms in the quota system for government jobs. Other than Ahad, three other children also died within their own homes when bullets were fired from outside.

Naima Sultana (15) was a Class 10 student at Milestone School in Uttara of the capital. She was in the verandah of their flat on the fourth floor of an apartment building in Uttara, when she was hit and killed by a bullet. She is from Chandpur.

On the same day a bullet came through the window and hit Shafqat Samir in the eye and came out the other side of his head, killing the 11-year-old boy. This occurred when the demonstrators had clashed with police along the road in front of the Kafrul police station in Mirpur.

And in Narayanganj, while Riya Gope had been playing on the roof, a bullet hit her in the head while she was in her father's arms. She later died in hospital. Riya was six-and-a-half years old.