‘Why did such tragedy befall my son?’

When the devastating fire broke out from a gas cylinder in Gazipur's Kaliakoir on Wednesday evening, Shah Alam, a salesman of an ice cream company, rushed to douse the fire with nearby locals.

In the wake of the fire, Alam helped the victims of the fire get to Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in the capital in an ambulance.

Accompanying the injured to the emergency ward, Alam heard the cries of a boy in a nearby bed, calling for his father. As the boy kept calling, he approached the bed and asked the boy who is his father.

At the moment, Alam was not prepared for the one word that would change his life.

"Tumi [you]," the boy uttered before fainting.

It was only then that Alam realised that the fire at the densely-populated colony in Telipara Mouchak area had left his own son Golam Rabbi, 11, with over 90 percent burns.

As of yesterday evening, Rabbi was fighting for his life at the hospital's intensive care unit (ICU).

At least 36 people, including women and at least nine children, suffered severe burns from the gas cylinder fire. All of them were undergoing treatment at the hospital with five of them being kept in the ICU.

Of the injured, at least 15 are in critical condition with 50 to 100 percent burns, and another six suffered 30-50 percent burns in their breathing tracts, Pradip Chandra Das, associate professor at the burn institute, told reporters on Wednesday.

Alam recalled the fateful evening just before the incident occurred while talking to this correspondent yesterday. 

"I had given Rabbi Tk 100 to buy sugarcane juice for Iftar from the market, located in the opposite of the site of the fire. Rabbi was not supposed to be at that place when the gas cylinder exploded," he said, his voice breaking.

"I still don't know how and why my son went there. Why did such tragedy befall my son?" said a devastated Alam.

The bemused father said his son came to meet him on March 7 from Natore, where he studies in the fourth grade.

Rabbi was supposed to return to Natore yesterday, Alam continued.

Rabbi had been under the care of the benevolent family of an army colonel since he was one-and-a-half years old, after his mother's passing, Alam also said.

While Alam's family hails from Sirajganj's Shahjadpur, he started to live in Kaliakoir for work after his wife's death.

Rabbi's aunt Karuna Begum said she visited her nephew at the ICU yesterday afternoon, but he was hardly responsive and had said he was not being able to see anything.