Quota protests: Trauma, pain etched on their faces

Lying in a hospital bed, teary-eyed Md Rifat was staring at his right leg, rather where his right leg used to be. He could not look away.
The 10th grader of Badda Alatunnessa Higher Secondary School was shot around 10:00am on July 19 while he went out of his home to see what was going on in Rampura.
He had two surgeries. His leg was amputated from the knee.
“I don’t know whether I will be able to go to school again,” Rifat said softly at the Casualty Ward-2 of the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation (Nitor).
He was struggling to hold back his tears as he recalled the life-changing incident.
“I just wanted to see what was going on in my neighbourhood. I didn’t go there to protest … I was having a sherbet near the Rampura U-loop, suddenly a bullet hit my right leg, and I fell to the ground.”
In the same ward, Imran Sarkar, a fourth-year student of philosophy at Dhaka College, was without his left leg. He was shot during a clash between the demonstrators and police in Rayerbazar area on July 19 afternoon.
“I was returning home after offering Juma prayers … All of a sudden, a bullet hit my left leg and I passed out,” said Imran.
When he regained consciousness, he found himself in the hospital bed.
“How will I walk again?” he said before bursting into tears.
He had another surgery yesterday afternoon.
At Nitor, Rifat and Imran are among eight people who lost their limbs after being shot during the recent violence. Of them, six lost their legs while two lost arms.
According to the hospital authorities, 238 patients with gunshot wounds, sustained between July 18 and July 22, had treatment at the hospital. Some of them have been discharged.
Doctors there feared they may not be able to save the limbs of a number of patients under treatment.
Md Mamun, a trucker from Bhairab in Kishoreganj, was lying in a bed of
Casualty Ward-1 on Wednesday.
The 30-year-old was brutally hacked when he was heading to Bhairab from Dhaka on July 19 afternoon.
“I was caught in the middle of a clash. There was gunfire all around me. As I got down from the truck for safety, some people got hold of me and attacked me with knives. I don’t know them,” he told this correspondent on Wednesday.
He had seven stitches on his left hand. However, his right hand bore several marks of stabs that became infected.
“The doctors told me there is no other option but to amputate my right hand. How will I drive without my right hand?” Mamun said.
Doctors yesterday had to amputate his right hand, his family members told this paper.
During a visit to the hospital on Wednesday, this correspondent found 34 patients with gunshot wounds still under treatment at Casualty Ward-2.
Seven of them were shot in their arms and 26 in their legs.
The air was heavy with the cries of patients and their relatives. Some were looking for certain types of blood.
Many of them said they were running out of money since they had spent a lot to travel to Dhaka and had been to multiple hospitals before getting to Nitor.
Kazi Shamim Uzzaman, director of Nitor, said all the patients admitted there underwent surgeries and some had multiple surgeries.
“Even after surgeries, some of them still have bullets in their bodies,” the director said.
The country witnessed unprecedented violence centring the quota reform demonstration. The non-violent movement turned violent after Chhatra League men attacked agitating students at Dhaka University and some other universities on July 15.
The violence escalated further in the following days after several students were killed in clashes. The government eventually imposed a nationwide curfew and deployed the armed forces.
According to the count of The Daily Star, since July 16, at least 156 people, including three police personnel, were killed. Several thousand were wounded in clashes between agitators and law enforcers, who were aided allegedly by ruling party activists.
The death toll may rise as The Daily Star could not reach many hospitals in Dhaka and elsewhere where many critically injured were taken for treatment. Also, many friends and families reportedly took the bodies of their loved-ones from the scenes and this newspaper could not contact them. The Daily Star’s count of the death toll is based solely on hospital and police sources.