A 60-year-old woman died gasping and screaming on a rickshaw van as her son desperately tried to negotiate police barricades put up to foil BNP’s ‘March for Democracy’ on Sunday morning. Mohammad Ali, a resident of Kaundia Nayabazar near Savar, said his mother may have survived if they had reached a hospital in Dhaka in time. “I was unable to find any transport on the roads because of the opposition programme.
Then, precious time was lost pleading and begging with law enforcers to let us go a hospital,” Ali told The Independent. “My mother died because of this politics of confrontation between the government and the opposition,” he added, sobbing uncontrollably.
Ali said his mother, Mabia Begum, suddenly fell ill in the morning, suffering from convulsions. “Her arms and legs were shaking, her face became white like a paper and she was unable to say anything except mumbling,” he said.
When her condition deteriorated, the local doctor told Ali to immediately take her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital or Suhrawardy Hospital in the capital city.
Ali went out to hire an ambulance or a vehicle to carry his mother. But the roads were deserted. He frantically searched everywhere and went as far as the highway. He even beseeched truck drivers and owners to carry his gasping mother to hospital, but they refused to help him. “They said they understood my predicament, but plying of all vehicles was stopped because of the BNP programme,” he added.
Ali finally managed to convince a van rickshaw puller to carry his mother. However, the man refused to go all the way. Left with no option, Ali had to change rickshaws three times on the way to hospital. “My mother’s gasping was becoming worse. I was urging the rickshaw pullers to pedal faster so as to reach the hospital in time,” he added.
But that was not to be. Police stopped him several times on the way and demanded to know his destination. “They finally relented after seeing my mother gasping and screaming under the quilt,” he said.
But time lost in pleading with the men in uniform had proved fatal. “We finally managed to reach Suhrawardy Hospital after two hours around 11am. The doctors there said my mother had already died,” he said, sitting beside her lifeless body on a van rickshaw at Aminbazar. He said she would be laid to rest beside his father’s grave back home in their village.
“I don’t want to see anyone to lose his mother like I did today. Why did the government stop plying of vehicles without giving a thought to the plight of poor patients?,” Ali said.
-With The Independent input
