Of deaths, the unexpected and unacceptable ones

The air around the Azimpur Graveyard was particularly heavy last night with wailing of people who came to bury their loved ones after they passed away in the tragic incident of Chawkbazar fire.

One of those victims was Joynal Abedin Babul, 57, who went around 10:30pm to get medicine from a pharmacy close to where the fire broke out on the fateful night, but never made it back home.

His family identified his body at Dhaka Medical College morgue almost 24 hours after they last saw him alive.

They had to recognise his body by the color of his shirt and the wrist watch he was wearing.

“He only went to get some medicine, he was not even in the building where the accident took place, why should we accept his death? Who is responsible for this?” lamented Babul’s son Md Ripon, 25, who came to bury his father around 12:00am.

Babul’s house is 300-400 yards away from the place of the incident. His family members tried contacting him over mobile phone after hearing the news of the fire but could not reach him.

“We hardly expected something bad happening to him as the fire broke out in a building. He could not have been inside any building, he just went to get medicine from a shop,” one of Babul’s family members told our correspondent.

Yet, the thing that was not supposed to happen, happened, leaving some with their last moments in this world in agony while others with a horrific memory that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Ripon shouted in grief, declaring that he cannot accept this unexpected death of his father and that he could never make peace with it.

He, however, was eventually calmed down by others, but his sorrow was uncontainable. Tears kept flowing from his eyes as he stared blankly.

Fourteen bodies of the victims have been buried in the graveyard so far, Hafizul Islam, senior supervisor of Azimpur graveyard, told The Daily Star.

The supervisor also said they had dug 70 graves beforehand in a bid to ensure that the families face less difficulty in the burial process.

However, no bodies came for burial since this morning, he added.