-by Md Mamun Islam
 
RANGPUR, Dec 22, 2024 (BSS) – Seventeen years ago, on July 19, 2007, Nazmeem Islam, 32, and Merajul Islam, 36, tied the knot in holy matrimony following a love affair.
 
Their family was happily living on the meager income of Merajul who worked as a daily wage laborer in a banana shop.
 
Even after 17 years of marriage, the couple's unadulterated love and loving relationship created a unique example in the area. Last July 19 was the 17th wedding anniversary of the couple.
 
Since that day, Nazmeem, the mother of two sons, still continues crying after losing her husband in the police firing of the then autocratic fascist Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's regime.
 
Perhaps no one knows more than Nazmeem how much painful the death of a husband on a wedding anniversary is for a woman. Nazmeem now faces only a bleak future with her children.
 
The overall situation in Rangpur became explosive after the martyrdom of Abu Sayeed, a talented student of Begum Rokeya University, in police firing on July 16 during the anti-discrimination student movement procession.
 
In this situation, an unusually calm atmosphere had prevailed in Rangpur city since the morning of Friday, July 19.
 
From 3 pm, thousands of students, leaders and activists of different political parties and organizations, took to the streets in many protest processions of the anti-discrimination student-people's mass movement.  
 
The entire city was in an uproar.
 
Numerous processions came out from different parts of the city and passed the streets through Shapla Chattar, Grand Hotel Intersection, Jahaz Company Intersection, Payra Chattar, SuperMarket, Raja Ram Mohan Roy Market, Zilla Parishad Mini Super Market, Over Bridge, City Market, and were peacefully moving towards the Zilla School.
 
Hundreds of armed police personnel in Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) were aggressively rushing from the Rangpur Police Lines to these areas to attack the student-public protest processions.
 
Around 4 pm, the mass protest marches of the anti-discrimination student-people movement tried to move towards the City Market and the surrounding areas.
 
Then, hundreds of armed leaders and activists of the Awami League and its affiliated organizations and the police and students and crowd started chasing and counter-chasing and throwing bricks turning the entire area into a battlefield.
 
At this time, to suppress the students and the crowd, the police opened fire from APC vehicles and threw rubber bullets, sound grenades and tear gas shells creating a frightening and deadly situation developed in the entire area.
 
That Friday was the wedding anniversary of the Merajul-Nazmeem couple. Preparations were underway to cook chicken and ‘polao-biriani’ at Merajul’s house.
 
The couple had many plans to celebrate the day in their own way. But just one bullet of the fascist regime destroyed the family that this couple had arranged.
 
Nazmeem is still stunned and helpless after thinking about her husband who returned as a dead body on the night of their wedding anniversary. She is devastated by the uncertain future of her two children.
 
Merajul Islam, son of the late Shamsul Haque of New Jummapara area of Rangpur city. He was the third of three brothers and a sister.
 
Merajul's mother Ambia Khatun, 65, lives in her husband's house in New Jummapara with her daughter Rabeya Khatun, 38, and her husband.
 
Merajul's elder brother Ramzan Ali, 40, runs a small hotel business in Dhaka and lives there with his wife, two daughters and a son.
 
His younger brother, day laborer Mohammad Masum, 25, lives with his wife and mother in their ancestral house in New Jummapara.
 
Merajul lived with his wife and two sons in a tin-roofed tiny house built on two decimals of land in the neighboring Amashu Kukrul area.
 
He studied up to the fifth grade and worked as a daily wage laborer in the banana shop of wholesale banana merchant Jasim Uddin in the city's City Bazar area for three years.
 
He used to earn Taka 200 to 300 daily. Before that, he ran a small betel leaf shop in the city's New Jummapara area for 13 years.
 
Nazmeem Islam, daughter of late Nurul Islam of the city's New Jummapara area, studied up to the tenth grade.
 
The couple's three-year-old son Mohammad Hanifa still does not understand the fact that he has been forever deprived of his father's affection.
 
The eldest son, Mehrab Hossain Nazil, 15, is a brilliant student of the ninth grade of the Rangpur Government Technical School and College. Merajul wanted to develop Nazil into an engineer.
 
On the afternoon of December 17, this reporter went to Shahid Merajul's house and witnessed the house stunned by grief with no noise or activity there.
 
Nazmeem’s eldest son Nazil called his mother from outside the house and said that a journalist had come to talk to her.
 
At that time, Nazmeem was sitting quietly on the bed in her bedroom with tears in her eyes.
 
Her younger sister Rajoni Islam, 22, a mother of two daughters, and her husband Reazul Islam, 25, a wholesale vegetable trader, who lived next door, were with her. They often come to Nazmeem's house during this difficult time.
 
Nazmeem was crying the entire time this BSS reporter interviewed her and her family members for about two hours.
 
Although almost four months have passed since Merajul's martyrdom, she has not yet returned to his normal life.
 
When this reporter asked her about the events of that day, Nazmeem said, crying profusely, "Although we had a low-income family, our happiness was endless. We had a happy family with two sons. Like my husband, I also wanted to see my eldest son become an engineer.”
 
She said, “A single bullet from the fascist Sheikh Hasina’s police destroyed the happy family we had arranged. Now where will I go with my two sons? How will I manage the expenses of my children’s education?”
 
Nazmeem said that like every year on July 19, they had talked about celebrating their wedding anniversary the night before.
 
Like every day in the morning, Merajul went to his workplace, the wholesale banana trader’s shop, after breakfast.
 
At noon, Merajul offered Jumma prayers at the mosque there. Then Merajul returned home with a big broiler hen, ‘polao’ rice, potatoes, etcetera.
 
Nazmeem said, "After coming home, Merajul ate rice with the chicken meat I had cooked. Then, leaning on the bed, he talked to me about the wedding anniversary arrangements. At one point, he fell asleep.”
 
“After some time, he woke up and offered prayers when he heard the Azan to prayer for the Asr," she said.
 
On the occasion of their wedding anniversary, Nazmeem invited her sister Rajoni with her husband and children. They also came to the house.
 
Nazmeem said, "Merajul brought a big broiler hen from the market. My younger son Hanifa played with it for a long time. At that time, Merajul slaughtered the hen for cooking.”
 
Then, Merajul, as usual, left the house holding Nazmeem’s hand to go to the market.
 
“We were talking while we went to a shop and Merajul bought breakfast for my sister and her children. Merajul left for the City Bazaar to pay the money to his employer at the banana shop at 4:30 pm,” she said.
 
"At that time, Merajul said, Nazmeem, you go home and start cooking. I will return after paying the money to my proprietor at the shop. We will have dinner together at night,” she said.
 
Nazmeem said, “Just half an hour after Merajul left, someone called me on his mobile phone and told me that Merajul had been shot. The locals had taken him to Rangpur Medical College Hospital. He advised me to go to the hospital instantly.”
 
Later, Nazmeem learned from people that Merajul had got inside clashes of the protesters and the police as soon as he reached near his workplace, the banana shop.
 
Then, he was shot in the stomach and fell to the ground. People rescued him and took him to the hospital.
 
Nazmeem said, I quickly went to the hospital around 6 pm with my elder sister Nur Nahar, elder brother's wife Arifa Akhter Khushi and younger sister Rajoni's husband Reazul.
 
Merajul’s elder sister Rabeya Khatun and other relatives also reached the hospital.
 
Nazmeem said, "Merajul was still alive in the hospital with an oxygen mask on his face. He was looking at me and trying to say something.”
 
Just then, the doctor wrote the medicines on a piece of paper and asked to quickly bring the medicines from outside.
 
“I went out with my sister-in-law Rabeya Khatun and bought medicines worth Taka 6,500 and returned to the hospital. At that time, our relatives waiting outside the operation theater were crying,” she said.
 
Nazmeem said, “When I went inside, I saw that Merajul was no more. I burst into tears."
 
At 7:30 pm, the hospital authority handed over Merajul's body to his family members. The body was brought to the house at 8 pm.
 
A weeping Nazmeem said, "Due to police pressure, the body was not allowed to be kept at home at night for relatives to see. Merajul's body was forced to be quickly buried at the New Jummapara cemetery that night.”
 
She said, "Merajul was the only earner in my family. I don't know how the family will survive, including the education expenses of my eldest son. Who will I seek justice from; will I ever get justice for shooting my innocent husband?"
 
Merajul's elder sister Rabeya Khatun said, "What crime did my brother commit that he should be shot and killed? I want speedy justice for the murder of my brother."
 
Merajul’s mother Ambia Khatun said, "Merajul was the third of her three sons and one daughter. I lost my husband when my children were young. On that Friday, Merajul was shot dead by the police. I want justice for the killers of my innocent son.”
 
Nazmeem’s younger sister’s husband, Reazul Islam, demanded the interim government to quickly try and hang Merajul’s killers.
 
He also requested that Nazmeem be given a government job according to his qualifications to raise their two sons.
 
Nazmeem said that so far, BNP Joint Secretary General Habib Un Nabi Khan Sohel has come to their house in Rangpur and given her Taka 40,000.
 
The Islamic Foundation has given her Taka 1.5 lakh and her mother-in-law Taka 50,000, a doctor Taka 10,000, Rangpur Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Rabiul Faisal Taka 20,000, and the July Smriti Foundation has given her Taka four lakh and her mother-in-law Taka one lakh.