‘Call me baba one last time’

The air at the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery was heavy with grief. Shah Jahan, father of Mirza Azam, a victim of the Gulistan building explosion who passed away this morning, was crying out loud.

All he kept on saying was: "Just call me Baba one last time... son... talk to me..."

Azam, 35, was a worker at a sanitary shop on the ground floor of the building in Siddikbazar where the explosion took place. He worked there for six years.

On the day of the incident, firefighters rescued him from the spot and admitted him to the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery.

Mirza, who was undergoing treatment at the institute with 80 percent burns, died around 9:30am today, Samanta Lal Sen, chief coordinator of the hospital, told The Daily Star.

Mirza's uncle, Nannu Mia, said, "His six-year-old daughter is still unaware that her father is no longer alive..., and now no one has the courage to tell her," he added.

The deceased was the eldest among two brothers and two sisters.

He used to live with his parents, wife, daughter, and siblings in a rented house in Moghbazar's Madhubag area. Their hometown is in Bauful village of Patuakhali.

Twenty-three people were killed and more than 100 injured in the blast in the capital's Gulistan on Tuesday.