The end of waiting for their return

Some children's fathers will never return. Many parents will never see their child again.

Just a month ago, the fathers were living, breathing people. They would come home in the evening after work, bringing chocolates or ice cream for their children. The children would wait all day, eagerly anticipating when their father would return, to be held in his arms or ride on his shoulders. Wives would wait for the sight of her beloved husband.

Similarly, parents would wait for their children. After finishing classes or hanging out with friends, the children would return home at the end of the day. Or they would come back after months from their hostels or dorms. 

Parents would wait every day, or for many days, for the return of their beloved children. But those children will never return. No matter how long they wait, these parents will never again see the faces they cherish the most.

The end has come for their return. The waiting for their return has also ended.

In just one month, more than 650 people have been lost forever. They are now in the land of eternal sleep. Some are sleeping right at their doorstep. Some are in family or community graveyards. And their parents, children, wives, and loved ones, are left devastated by grief.

A report from TBS states that according to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, around 650 people were killed across the country during the anti-discrimination student movement from July 16 to August 11.

The UN report titled "Preliminary Analysis of Recent Protests and Unrest in Bangladesh" states that 400 people were reported dead between July 16 and August 4. Another 250 were killed on August 5 and 6.

Additionally, several deaths occurred between August 7 and 11, including individuals who succumbed to injuries sustained during the violence while receiving treatment in hospitals.

They shot a young man hanging from a cornice in search of shelter. They shot children taking refuge behind a road divider. They shot a young man clinging to an armoured personnel carrier. Then they threw him onto the street, dragged him along, and shot him again. They shot a young man handing out water to the crowd. They fired into crowds of thousands. They targeted and shot people in gatherings. For them, it was a festival of death. A competition to see who could kill the most people with the most bullets.

The United Nations reports that among the dead were protesters, passersby, journalists, and members of law enforcement. Thousands of protesters and bystanders were also injured.

Every day, one or two of the injured in hospitals are dying. The list of deaths, which began on July 16, continues to grow.

About the deaths in Language Movement of 1952, Alauddin Al Azad wrote:

"What kind of death is this? Has anyone seen such death?

Bangladesh has never seen anything like what happened in 2024 - so many people killed by bullets in such a short time!

Some of us witnessed these deaths with our own eyes; some saw the footage captured on mobile phones. It was as if a group of madmen were celebrating a festival of death.

They shot unarmed people once, twice, six times. They shot directly at their hearts. They shot at their eyes, foreheads and heads.

They shot a young man hanging from a cornice in search of shelter. They shot children taking refuge behind a road divider. They shot a young man clinging to an armoured personnel carrier. Then they threw him onto the street, dragged him along, and shot him again.

They shot a young man handing out water to the crowd. They fired into crowds of thousands. They targeted and shot people in gatherings.

For them, it was a festival of death. A competition to see who could kill the most people with the most bullets.

Their hands didn't tremble once. They shattered human bodies with bullets as easily as crushing ants.

Did they not see these people as human beings? Did it not occur to them that they had sons, brothers, fathers of the same age?

No, they didn't think that. They thought these people had to be killed. And they did it.

This wasn't a war between Russia and Ukraine; it wasn't an Israeli attack on Gaza. This was a protest by the people of their own country. But the killers didn't see the protesters as their own people. They didn't see them as human beings.

That's why their hands didn't tremble when they shot. Their eyes didn't blink. They fired shot after shot. Without hesitation, they shot children, teenagers, and young men in the chest, people the same age as their own sons. They shot middle-aged men the same age as their own brothers, or elderly men the same age as their own fathers.

They even shot children from helicopters, children the same age as their own. They shot young women and middle-aged women standing on balconies, women the same age as their own sisters.

They started their killing spree by murdering Abu Saeed, who stood with his arms outstretched in protest. But people, when pushed against a wall, can't retreat any further. The march grew bigger. The bigger the march grew, the more they shot. The march only grew larger.

Yet they didn't stop. The police commissioner, showing the home minister a video on his mobile phone, said that when they shoot, one person gets injured, one person gets killed. But the march doesn't stop. The march gets bigger. That's the problem.

They thought they could solve that problem with bullets. By climbing to the peak of cruelty and inhumanity, they thought they could stop everything.

But it didn't stop.

Today, we can analyse the fall of the government in many ways. We can find a thousand reasons. But if we look for just one reason, it is this massacre. Genocide.

It started with one. They thought they could stop it with a few dozen. That's why there are so many killings, so much preparation for murder.

But when people learn to die, neither the march of death nor the fall of those who turn death into a procession can be stopped.

In Rabindranath's words, we might say:

"Victory to death, victory to death
To our eternal death
Death will not be defeated."

But what about the five-year-old child who still waits for his father? The child who, upon waking up, learned that his mother had become a star in the sky, killed by a shell fired from a helicopter? 

The mother who, against all odds, waits for her beloved child? The father who carried his child's body on his shoulder? The brother who laid a piece of earth on his brother's grave? The sister who will carry the pain of losing her brother for a lifetime?

Are they cursing? Will they keep cursing?

Zahid Newaz Khan. Sketch: TBS