Mahmudul Hasan Joy. -Photo: Collected

By Syed Altefat Hossain   

DHAKA, Feb 23, 2025 (BSS) – Hasi Begum (35) had raised her two 
children alone as she was divorced in 2015, working tirelessly in garment 
factories to support them.

She had no idea that her son Mahmudul Hasan Joy was involved in the anti-
discrimination movement until his death, when she discovered a photograph of 
him chanting slogans at a student-people procession.

Joy, a 15-year-old factory worker, left their rented house at Bank Colony 
area of West Shanarpar at Demra in the city around 11.30am to join the 
historic “March to Dhaka Programme” aimed at overthrowing the 
autocratic ruler Hasina on August 5.

The movement ultimately ended nearly 16 years of autocracy, but Joy 
did not live to see the victory he fought for. He was shot dead in the Kajla 
area of Jatrabari, during the movement, exposing his mother to a total 
emotional wilderness.

“On August 5, my son left home around 11.30am without having 
breakfast. I thought he went to a grocery shop. Seeing his delay to return 
home, I called him around 12.30pm, but found his phone switched off,” 
Joy’s grief-stricken mother told BSS at an interview recently at her 
Shanarpar residence.

Hasi recalled that around 3pm, Joy’s friends came to her house with the 
devastating news that Joy was hit by a bullet on his head and taken to 
Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).

As chaos engulfed the city streets, she said her incumbent husband 
Manik Mia (30), whom she married three years back, braved the turmoil 
to reach the hospital, forcing her to stay at home.

“When my husband reached the hospital, he told me Joy was in critical 
condition and needed a huge amount of O positive blood,” Hasi said in a 
sobbing tone, adding that she finally managed to reach the hospital after 
Maghrib prayers.

“But after reaching the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, I was bewildered 
to find my son on life support in the intensive care unit (ICU) and his bed 
drenched in blood,” she recalled, saying by that time seven bags of 
blood had already been infused into him, but he couldn't hold on.

“Around 10pm, doctors asked us to go out of the ICU. When I was trying 
to stay inside the IUC forcefully, a nurse unfolded disheartening news 
that the whole brain of my son came out with the bullet that pierced 
through his head. And there was no hope of his survival,” Hasi lamented.

She, however, burst into tears recalling that her son took his final breath 
just before 3am.

Hasi said they took Joy’s body to their Shanarpar residence without a 
postmortem due to the overwhelming number of casualties that day. 
“When we left the hospital, gunfire was still continuing outside the 
emergency service,” Hasi recounted.

When Joy’s body was taken to their neighborhood, a pall of gloom 
descended in the area, since he grew up there since his birth.

“Although Joy’s father, Mizanur Rahman, wanted to bury him in their 
ancestral village in Narsingdi, local residents didn’t allow him rather they 
insisted on laying Joy to eternal rest at the local graveyard here,” Hasi 
said, adding, the locals bore all the burial costs except for the cloth “as 
we requested them to allow us to provide the burial cloth for our son”.

While visiting the neighboring area of Joy’s residence, this 
correspondent found that the local residents named a premise after his name 
as “Joy Chattor”.  
  
Sharing her life-long struggle to raise her two children - Joy and 
Mahmuda Akter Sampa (14), a seventh grader at a local high school, 
Hasi said she got divorced 10 years back and raised her children alone 
as her ex-husband Mizanur Rahman never took care of their children.
   
Recalling that she raised her children by working at garment factories, 
keeping them at the house of their grandmother (Hasi’s mother), Hasi 
said, “I didn’t raise my children to see this day (death of a child),” she 
wailed.

Noting that she didn’t know that Joy was participating in the movement 
regularly, Hasi said, “Everyone in the neighborhood knew Joy was active 
in the movement, but I was in the dark”.

“Later, I heard that on August 5, many people tried to stop Joy from 
going to the movement, but he didn’t listen to them. Rather he said, ‘If 
needed, I will embrace martyrdom’. My son wanted to enjoy the taste of 
freedom, but he never thought about me,” Joy’s grieving mother said 
with a heavy heart.

Hasi said her son joined a factory job one year back to support the family 
as it was hard to run the family with the income of her incumbent 
husband Manik.

“My son had a dream of making me happy. Just few days before his 
death, he had told his grandmother (my mother) that he wanted to learn 
a skill that would free us from hardship,” Joy’s wailing mother said, 
quoting him as he told, “My mother has suffered too much. I will free my 
mother from this pain forever”.

“But the bullets of the perpetrators ruined the dream of my son,” Hasi 
said. She demanded capital punishment for those responsible for her 
son’s death.