An injured sixth grader died in an ambulance on a ferry after the vessel waited three hours at the Kathalbari Ferry Terminal Thursday night for a government high official.

Thirteen-year-old Titash Ghosh, a student of Kalia Pilot Secondary School in Narail, was critically injured in a motorbike accident in Narail on Wednesday evening, family members said. He was rushed to a hospital in Khulna and kept on life support.

A day later, the doctors referred him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for an emergency operation.

The family with the child in an ambulance was coming to Dhaka and arrived at the Kathalbari Ferry Terminal in Munshiganj around 8:00pm on Thursday.

A ferry called “Ferry Cumilla” was already at the pontoon but it had its gate closed and was not loading vehicles.

Titash’s uncle Bijoy Ghosh said they learnt that the ferry would be late as it was waiting for an additional secretary.

The ambulance had committed to the pontoon and could not reverse or go to another pontoon because of queues of vehicles around it.

The family members pleaded to the authorities concerned there to resume the ferry’s operation but to no avail.

The ferry started loading vehicles around 10:20pm when the authorities learnt that the high official was close to the terminal.

Around 11:00pm, the official arrived and the started moving.

Titash died on the ferry, said Bijoy.  

Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation’s manager Abdus Salam said he did not know that there was a critical patient at the terminal.

The ferry had been waiting for Md Abdus Sabur Mondal, the head of Digital Service and Public Service Innovation Cluster and E-service Implementation Specialist of the Access to Information (a2i) Programme at the Prime Minister’s Office.

He said he did not know that a critically-injured patient was kept waiting or that a ferry was kept waiting for him. Such an act is unacceptable, he said.