By Md Aynal Haque
 
PABNA, Dec 11, 2024 (BSS) - Martyr Zulker Nayeen was an active participant in the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement since its very beginning, as he was growing up with an anti-discrimination mentality.
 
Hailing from Swarup village under Sathia upazila in Pabna district, Zulker Nayeen was vocal and stringent against any sort of injustice in society from his boyhood.

He was an active participant in the anti-discrimination student movement that gradually was getting momentum to oust Sheikh Hasina-led fascist government. 
 
Following the martyrdom of Zulker Nayeen, his father, Abdul Hai Al Hadi, and mother, Halima Khatun, became bewildered as they have yet to return to normal life.
 
Particularly, the mother of Nayeen, Halima Khatun, is still shell-shocked after her son's death. The grieving mother demanded the death penalty of the killers.
 
Nayeen's father was losing control of his emotions when he was showing Nayeen's belongings, even his blood-stained shirt.

He was the second son among three children of the Abdul Hai Al Hadi and Halima Khatun couple, and they used to live in a rented house in the Baipail area at Ashulia, on the outskirts of the capital city of Dhaka. 
 
Zulker Nayeen, who was a student of Class IX at Polashbari Model School at Ashulia, sustained a bullet wound in his chest when police opened fire on the protestors under the banner of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement at Ashulia Baipail in the afternoon of August 5.

Some of his co-fighters rushed him to Ashulia Nari O Shishu Hospital. As his condition deteriorated, he was referred to Enam Hospital at Savar with oxygen support, where the attending doctors declared him dead in the evening.

Cricket player Nayeen used to take part in the anti-discrimination student-people movement in Nabinagar, Jahangirnagar, and Ashulia. 

Just after the fall of the fascist Awami League government on August 5, he joined a victory procession at Ashulia around 3 pm and sustained bullet wounds around 4:30 pm.
"My brother was on the streets from the beginning of the student movement until his martyrdom," said Tohfa Akhter, 17, Nayeen's elder sister.
 
"I badly miss my brother. I have been in trauma for over three months... and I have been crying for him every day since his death," she added.
 
She still feels her brother's existence. Tohfa said, "I cannot think that he is no more and he will never come to us."

Talking to BSS over the phone on Saturday, Abdul Hai Al Hadi said his son Zulker Nayeen was involved with the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement since its very beginning.

After hearing the news, Hadi said, "We went to Enam Hospital but couldn't find our son alive. First, we took him to our rented house, and after that we took him to our village home at Sathia that night.

 We buried the body the following morning".
 
"All people responsible for mass killing, including those who ordered the police to kill people, must be identified and brought to justice," Hadi, a homeopathy practitioner, said.
 
"We have no political identity. My son has made supreme sacrifices for the country. Those, who have supremely sacrificed for the country, should be given martyrdom dignity," Hadi opined.
 
"My son's supreme sacrifice will be justified when we see an ideal and discrimination-free Bangladesh," he added.