Rabbi -Photo: Collected

By Selina Sheuly

DHAKA, June 6, 2025 (BSS) – “Police’s live bullets took away my 17-year-old son from me. I didn’t want to be the mother of a martyred son. Before going to the movement, my beloved son left his watch, ring, and leather shoes at home.”
 
“He went out wearing sandals from the bathroom. Why did Allah punish me like this? Please give me my son Rabbi back.”
 
This was the lament of Asma Begum, the mother of Ismail Hossain Rabbi, who was killed during the mass uprising in the Karatitola area of Sayedabad.
 
Rabbi’s father, Md Miraj, 58, a van puller, and his mother have been left devastated by the loss of their only son.
 
While talking to BSS, Miraj, who was sitting on the floor, suffering from fever and difficulty in breathing, cried profusely.
 
Asma Begum, 48, said, "I have done nothing wrong in my life. How can I still bear such grief? My son has torn my heart and gone far away."
 
She said, "I explained to my son Rabbi many times, touching his head and body… I used to tell him, 'Don't go to the procession. Don’t you feel my pain, my son? Why are you going?'"
 
When Rabbi saw that his mother was crying, he said, “Mom, don’t cry. Mughdho and Abu Sayeed have embraced martyrdom. Is their blood worthless?”
 
“I can’t live without you, my son," she added.
 
Her (Asma's) two brothers also said, “Tomorrow there will be a war across the country. You are the only son of the family—don’t go to the movement.”
 
Everyone at home pleaded with young Rabbi. He just kept quiet and listened to everyone.
 
"I gave him sleeping pills, but none of them worked," his mother said, crying.
 
She said, "My daughters told me not to let Rabbi go to the protest. They said to give him sleeping pills and keep him at home. I was determined to keep my son at home. But I couldn’t.”
 
"Now, I can’t sleep. It seems he is wandering around the house, calling me, saying, 'Mom, give me rice.' I call him, but I cannot find him anywhere," she said.
 
Ismail Hossain Rabbi, the youngest sibling of Mitu Akhter, 28, and Mim Akhter, 24, was a second-year student at Shariatpur Polytechnic Institute.
 
Mim Akhter said, “Rabbi joined the protest marches in Shariatpur on July 15 and 16. When we heard he had gone to the protests, we urgently brought him back to Dhaka on July 17.”
 
“But he didn’t stay home even for a day after arriving.”
 
Mim added, “The night before he left again, Rabbi talked to my mother, sister, and me. I begged him not to go anywhere. I told him, ‘You won’t survive if you’re shot.’”
 
Hearing this, Rabbi replied, "You are only thinking about yourself. The oppression faced by students and the public cannot be tolerated. If I die a martyr while protesting, so be it. I will be a martyr."
 
He also said, “People must protest. This time, people have already come to the street. This time, Hasina has no protection.”
 
“Rabbi was always a protester,” Mim said, adding he had been joining processions since childhood.
 
When Rabbi was a class six student in 2018, he created a slogan himself: “I eat my father’s food—I wear my father’s clothes—why must I die on the streets in this country?” He would write the slogan on a piece of paper and walk around with it.
 
Mim said that on July 21, he was hit in the chest by a rubber bullet while participating in the protests.
 
“When I asked him about it, he said police fired rubber bullets at him from very close range. They also fired tear gas shells. At first, he didn’t feel the bullet. When he saw blood, he removed the bullet himself and cleaned the wound,” she said.
 
That day, Rabbi came home with a bandage and cotton wrapped around his injury.
 
Recalling the night before his martyrdom, she said, “On the night of August 3, I gave him two sleeping pills and told him to take them and sleep. If you sleep, you won’t go to the protest again.”
 
“He smiled and said nothing,” she said. “But he didn’t sleep even a moment, despite the pills,” Mim added.
 
Referring to the day of the incident, Mim told BSS that everyone was alert that morning. Rabbi went to the bathroom, performed ablution, and prayed. Then he laid down on the bed.
 
“At 12:30 pm, I saw him asleep. He hadn’t slept all night. I thought if he rested, he wouldn’t go to the protest. I even turned off his mobile phone so that no one could disturb him. My mother and I then left to teach Arabic,” she said.
 
“We were gone for about an hour. When we returned, Rabbi was gone. The cement lining on one side of the door had broken. The outer door was unlocked from the inside. He had left. He didn’t even respond to my father’s call,” she said.
 
Mim said, “When we returned, I was worried and called his phone several times. It rang, but he didn’t answer. We waited and waited. As night fell, my mother, sister, and I searched everywhere for him.”
 
“I searched until 3 am that night. I went to Chankharpul Police Station and saw many dead bodies. I turned over each one. Rabbi wasn’t among them.”
 
“The next morning, my sister and I decided to go to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) to search for him. The road was in chaos—barricades everywhere, gunfire in the air,” she said.
 
“After much difficulty, we reached DMCH. I ran from one end of the hospital to the other with Rabbi’s photo on my phone, showing it to everyone—from doctors to nurses.”
 
Around 10:30 am, a ward boy asked us to go to the hospital morgue.
 
“I thought, ‘Rabbi’s body can’t be in the morgue. I won’t go.’”
 
The ward boy showed us pictures of two bodies. They were very young.
 
“In the next picture, I saw that Rabbi lying curled up on a stretcher in the last row, facing the wall,” Mim said. “Mitu cried and screamed, ‘Oh my God, what did I just see!’”
 
“After that, we both lost consciousness for about half an hour in front of the morgue,” she recounted.
 
When Mim regained consciousness and asked for Rabbi’s body, the morgue official said, “Your brother’s body can’t be handed over. It was taken by Dhanmondi Zigatola police.” 
 
“Later, we learned that the Dhanmondi Zigatola police had not taken my brother. We rushed to the hospital administration, but we were unable to retrieve his body,” she said.
 
Many people were saying that the seriously injured were being brought to the hospital, but the doctors were not treating them.
 
They were saying, "There are orders from high-ups not to treat them. If you want to leave them in the morgue, leave them; otherwise, take the body."
 
Mim said, "Around 10:11 a.m., bullets were coming like rain from the Chankharpul area. There was also firing from the sky."
 
“Everyone, including our two maternal uncles, went to the Zigatola police station in Dhanmondi. Our uncles were driven out of the hospital,” she recollected.
 
“‘Why did he go to the procession again and again, huh? Why are you coming to us now? I won’t give you the death certificate papers,’” Mim said, quoting a policeman there.
 
“We returned to DMCH helplessly. Soon, we heard that fascist Sheikh Hasina had resigned. Hearing this, some people present there said, 'Alhamdulillah,' while others offered prayers,” she added.
 
“At 4 p.m., we learned that student coordinators were coming to DMCH to take the bodies for a procession. When we showed them Rabbi's body, they took it and left through the back gate of the hospital in a victory procession,” Mim said.
 
She added, “We took part in the procession with Rabbi’s body. A coordinator in the procession told us to go to Ward No. 7 of the hospital and collect the death certificate, otherwise, there could be trouble.”
 
Later, we buried Rabbi’s body in our village home in Faridpur.
 
Mim reminisced, “Rabbi was my parents’ strength. My father's asthma has worsened. Now I don’t know how the family will survive.”
 
“Despite poverty, I was supporting my son for continuing his studies. 
 I had many dreams. I thought my Rabbi would take care of the family after completing his diploma course and getting a job as an engineer,” Asma Begum said.