What was his fault?:Daily Star

Two-and-a-half-year-old Safir, burnt in a petrol bomb attack in Narayanganj town on Sunday, fighting for life at the HDU of City Hospital in the capital. Photo taken yesterday. Photo: Palash Khan Safir, aged only two and a half years, had already been in pain from burns caused by boiled water that had spilled on his leg two weeks earlier. The wounds were enough to make him bawl every now and then.
But when he fell victim to an arson attack that pro-blockaders carried out on a bus in Narayanganj on Sunday evening, it badly burnt his body putting his life in peril and causing him pain that his delicate body could hardly bear with. With 17 percent burns, mostly in his forehead, face, hands and legs, Safir is undergoing treatment at the High Dependency Unit (HDU) of burn and plastic surgery unit of the capital's City Hospital. He was whimpering, writhing in pain with a pipe in his nose for supplying liquid food. Barely could he open his eyes. But when he could, he was looking for the warmth of his parents.  “I cannot think of anything else right now. Just pray for my son. I have no more words to say,” said his shell-shocked father Saiful Islam, himself a physician. Prof Shahidul Bari, head of the hospital's burn and plastic surgery unit, said Safir's condition was better yesterday than the previous two days. “Hopefully, we will shift him from HDU to a general cabin in a day or two,” he told The Daily Star over the phone last night. Advertisement Saiful and his wife Sharmin Siddique, also a physician, were also receiving treatment at the same hospital. Saiful suffered five percent burns in his hands and his wife had injuries to her left hand and forehead. The mindless arson incident took place at Narayanganj's Chashara intersection around 9:00pm. Family sources said after dressing Safir's burnt leg from the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, his parents were taking him to his maternal grandfather's house. The couple live in the capital's Khilgaon. They were going to Narayanganj on a bus as they had left their four-month-old second child with Sharmin's mother. When the bus reached Chashara, pro-blockaders hurled a petrol bomb at it, said Faruque Hossain, one of their relatives, quoting the victims. Sensing danger, Saiful pushed Sharmin through the window and ran for the gate with Safir in his lap. But the child fell from his lap and got burnt in the fire caused by the bomb. Saiful was injured while saving his son and Sharmin broke her left hand and suffered injuries to her forehead while jumping through the vehicle's window. Few other passengers were wounded while escaping the arson scene but none other than Safir and his father received any burn injuries, said Manzur Quader, officer-in-charge, Narayanganj police station. Relatives took them to the DMCH. Later they were shifted to the City Hospital in Lalmatia. Safir's parents were crying ever since they were admitted at the hospital, worrying about their son, said Faruque who blamed all this on the country's abominable political culture which put common people's lives in extreme danger. “Our political leaders will never change their policies which are obviously not for common people. We are only to suffer due to their whims and selfish ways of fulfilling their political goals,” said a frustrated Faruque.