Survived, only to bear pain

“Living has been a curse to me. It would have been better if I died that day. I feel like death every moment.”

This is how Mahbuba Parvin expressed her agony when this correspondent asked her how she was doing.

“Sometimes I think about killing myself when the pain drives me crazy.... Sometimes I dream of the normal life I had before 2004. But it's not possible to go back,” the survivor of the August 21 grenade attack told The Daily Star over the phone last week.

She is among the worst injured in the attack.

Four survivors of the attack told this newspaper how the gruesome attack left them physically crippled and mentally traumatised and how they have been coping with their losses for 14 years.

The grisly attack on an Awami League rally on Bangabandhu Avenue left 24 dead and more than 300 others injured.

AL chief Sheikh Hasina, then opposition leader, narrowly escaped death with injuries to her right ear. Ivy Rahman, wife of late president Zillur Rahman, was among the dead.

Mahbuba, senior vice-president of Dhaka district Swechchhasebak League, is living with almost 1,800 splinters in her body, including two in her brain.

In the photos that appeared in newspapers after the grenade attack, she was seen in a blood-stained sari lying among the dead on Bangabandhu Avenue.

People at first took her to be dead.

After three days in a coma, she first moved her limbs, and regained full-consciousness after 25 days.

“I will never get back what I have lost. Now I want justice. If the culprits are punished, I will get some relief.”

Stories of Rashida Akhter Ruma, Khurshida Baby Hena and Farida Malek, who only just survived the blasts, are similarly distressing.

Ruma, who has been carrying about 700 splinters in her body, said the fact that she survived was a miracle.

“When I was taken to Dhaka Medical Collage Hospital after the blasts, everyone thought I was dead and I was kept with the dead bodies at first,” the member of Dhaka (south) city AL, said.

Proving doctors and rescuers wrong, she survived, she continued.

“I was perfectly ok when I attended the rally that day in 2004. But now I have become a physically disabled person,” the grieving woman said.

She still suffers severe pain in the abdomen and ear.

“Those who died that day are relieved of all pain, but how will I get relief?” she asked.

Khurshida, meanwhile, said, “Even after passing the 14 painful years, I have to say I am fine.”

Khurshida, who also has splinters in her lower abdomen, breasts and right leg, talked about her pain with this correspondent.

“I can't have solid food. I have passed many days on water. I still have to take more medicine than food,” she said.

“My life has now become meaningless…. It's all because of the grenade attack. Now I want justice. I will die in peace if the culprits are punished,” the vice-president of Mohila Awami League said.

Farida, who also has several hundred splinters below her waist, said she had to watch how her fellow activists and leaders died.

“I was sitting beside Ivy Apa [Ivy Rahman] that day holding her hand. I saw her being hit by splinters,” she recalled.

Now a Mohila League leader of ward-19, she dreads winter as her pain intensifies in cold weather.

She also wants to see justice.