C T Online Desk: our days ago, 22-year-old student Samia Afnan Jamal Prity went to stay at her friend Sumaiya’s house. On Thursday, she left her friend’s house and called her mother Hosne Ara Begum to tell her that she was headed home and wanted to have dinner with the family.
“Can you stay at Sumaiya’s for another night? Your uncle is visiting us from Chittagong,” her mother told her over the phone.
Prity, who was accompanied by her friend Sumaiya at the time, agreed to do so. The two friends hired a rickshaw to head back. The moment it started to move, there was gunfire. And then, Prity fell from the rickshaw.
She was an innocent bystander, killed in the crossfire when unknown assailants opened fire on the microbus of Motijheel Awami League leader Jahidul Islam Tipu.
“My daughter wanted to come home, but I stopped her. It’s my fault that she’s left us,” cried Prity’s mother Hosne Ara, as she stood near the Dhaka Medical College morgue.
“Life and death are in Allah’s hands,” Prity’s father Md Jamaluddin said, trying to console his wife, even as his own voice cracked with emotion.
Jamaluddin works in a factory in Mirpur. The family – a husband, a wife and two children – lived in a small two-room apartment in Shantibag.
The family didn’t have much money and Jamaluddin could not provide a proper education for his children. Prity had failed her HSC exams once and took a break from her studies. She worked in a food shop in Khilgaon for some time. But recently she had resumed her studies and was preparing to take her HSC exams from Begum Badrunnesa College.
Sumaiya Akter, Prity’s friend, said that she had asked Prity to come stay with her because her mother had gone for a visit to their village. On Thursday, Prity left Sumaiya’s house with plans to go home.
Later on, Prity changed her mind and called Sumaiya to meet her at Khilgaon rail gate. The two friends then got on the rickshaw to go back to Sumaiya’s place.
The moment the rickshaw puller started to pedal, there was a bang. Both of the friends fell off the rickshaw. Sumaiya sat up and found Prity unconscious.
The assailants targeted a microbus nearby, Sumaiya said, but she did not see the attackers.
According to the police, a gunman wearing a helmet on a motorcycle fired multiple shots through the window of Tipu’s vehicle.
Law enforcers recovered 11 bullet casings from the scene but are yet to track down the shooter.
