It was 12 o’clock on Friday. A red-blue canopy was hung in front of the one-storied house Sawrnalta in the Jhiltuli area of Faridpur town. A freezer van was standing under it with people gathering near the vehicle. Nasirul Islam, additional deputy inspector of police (DIG), was sitting silently near the van while several people were also surrounding him. They all were silent too.
The police official lost his daughter Lamisa in the Bailey Road fire in Dhaka that left at least 46 people dead. Lamisa, a mechanical engineering student at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) was the eldest among the two daughters of Nasirul Islam, who is a single father and brought up his two daughters since his wife died of illness in 2018.
A freezer van of Dhaka Metropolitan Police brought the body of Lamisa in the Faridpur town around 10:30 am. Relatives, officials of various units of police, as well as politicians were present at the house. The body was kept in the open space of the house.
Father Nasirul Islam sat on the road in front of the house with relatives and colleagues. He went absolutely silent. He was talking to nobody and was not crying either. Everyone also became silent.
The body of Lamisa was taken to Chawkbazar Jam-e-Mosque in Faridpur around 12:30 pm, where her namaz-e-janaza was held. Later she was buried at Alipur Graveyard.
Alea Begum is from the South Jhiltuli area. She told Prothom Alo, “Those two sisters were very polite. Their father brought them up alone after their mother died in 2018. He dreamt his eldest daughter would study at BUET, and his dream came true. But unfortunately, Allah took that girl.”