News Flash
NARAYANGANJ, May 7, 2025 (BSS) – The day was July 21, 2024. Sounds of gunfire engulfed the whole surrounding area. Chases and counter chases were continuing between the police and the protesters under the banner of anti-discrimination student movement. Helicopters were flying overhead while black smoke engulfed the sky.
Amid that chaos, Khaleda Kabir warned her children, “Don't go outside.”
But her youngest son, Ahsan Kabir Sharif, 33, stepped out to join the protest without informing her. Having failed to find Sharif at home, Khaleda called him repeatedly and her anxiousness grew with each unanswered call. Sharif returned home that day, but not alive but as corpse.
On that day, Sharif didn’t return home alive, but as a corpse.
Sharif, a resident of Dakkhin Sanarpar in Demra area, was killed during the anti-discrimination student movement on July 21 last year. A bullet reportedly fired from a helicopter near Signboard in the district hit him in the chest, leaving him spot dead.
He was the youngest child of retired schoolteacher Humayun Kabir (65) and Khaleda Kabir (55). A graduate of Dhaka University, Sharif worked in a private company. But a single bullet ended not just his life, but the dreams and joy of an entire family.
Sharif’s life was a cycle of daily work. He used to come home in the evening from his workplace and spend time with his parents and play with his beloved niece. His elder brother Mahbub (36) is an expatriate while his sister Rokeya (39) is a married woman and lives in Mirpur in capital Dhaka.
Sharif’s mother, Khaleda, has been suffering from multiple ailments.
Talking to BSS, his grief-stricken mother said, “When a son dies in front of a mother, the mother’s life turns into a burden for her.”
Noting that a surgery was performed on her knee, Khaleda tearfully said, “Sharif used to massage my aching legs. My condition deteriorated after his death. If he would remain alive, I would've had another surgery by now.”
Remembering the fateful afternoon, she said, “After lunch, I asked my granddaughter, Sarah, about her uncle. She replied, ‘Chachu (uncle) went outside’. Hearing it, I trembled as at that time there was indiscriminate firing outside”.
Khaleda said she tried to reach Sharif over phone, but failed.
“Later, some boys came and told my husband that Sharif had been shot. Hearing the news, he rushed to the spot immediately,” she recalled the heartbreaking moment.
“Though I was very sick and unable to walk, I started walking with the help of my daughter-in-law. But I didn’t know which hospital he was taken to . . . I just prayed to Allah: let me speak to my son one last time. But no… my son couldn’t say a word. By the time I reached there, he was no more,” Khaleda wailed.
Sharif's niece, seven-year-old Sarah, still believes her beloved uncle will return with chocolate.
When she observed this correspondent was talking about her uncle, she said, “Chachu just went somewhere. He’ll be back soon with chocolate”.
Recalling her brother Sharif's memory, Rokeya burst into tears. “They gunned down my brother like a bird from a helicopter. Since his death, our home has fallen apart. My father doesn’t stay home anymore—he travels with Tabligh to escape the pain”.
Recalling the fateful day, Sharif’s father Humayun Kabir said he was standing outside the gate of their home when some people came running and told him, ‘Sir, your son has been shot!’
“Hearing the news, I was bewildered. Just a while ago I saw him. What were they saying? I rushed to the spot with them and found my son’s lifeless body lying on the street,” he said tearfully.
Finding no vehicles around to take him to hospital, Kabir said, they put Sharif’s body in a vegetable cart and drove it to the hospital himself.
“When I begged the doctors to save my son, they revealed the bitter truth: 'Your son is no more’,” he said in a sobbing tone.
Kabir, now broken and disoriented, spends his time with religious group Tabligh to escape the pain.
Seeking justice for his son’s killing, Kabir said, “Sharif was a golden boy. You would rarely find a son like him in this era. But killer Hasina took my son away. I want justice. I want capital punishment for her. Under her orders, so many mothers have lost their children”.
Speaking about financial assistance, he said they received Taka 2 lakh from Jamaat-e-Islami and Taka 5 lakh from the July Shaheed Smrity Foundation since Sharif’s martyrdom.
