Bullet leaves newborn without a mother

There were loud noises everywhere.

Helicopters were flying over the Siddhirganj area of Narayanganj since the afternoon.

It was July 20 and clashes were ongoing between protesters and law enforcers.

Once her two-month-old daughter fell asleep, Sumaiya Akter, 20, put her down on the bed and went to the balcony of their six-storey building, to see what was happening outside.

Suddenly, a bullet hit her and she fell on the floor.

Her mother, Asma Begum, was already in the balcony at the time. She did not immediately realise what happened. She saw her daughter lying in a pool of blood.

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"I kept calling her name, but got no response. It took me a while to realise that she was no more. She was shot in the head. The bullet pierced through the iron grille before hitting her," Asma said while pointing to the hole in the rod of the balcony grille.

Sumaiya's younger brother, Md Sojol, said, "Since the morning of that day, helicopters were flying in the area."

Asma kept pointing to the bullet hole in the iron grille, saying, "This could not have happened unless the shot was fired from above. There were helicopters flying directly over our building. If the bullet had been fired from below, the hole wouldn't look like this. That's why we believe the shot came from a helicopter."

Mentionable, Rab in a press statement yesterday stated that no shots were fired from their helicopters.

She said family members took Sumaiya to a private hospital in the Signboard area, where doctors declared her dead.

She was buried at a local graveyard in Siddhirganj.

Sumaiya, daughter of the late Salim Matbor of Barishal's Mehendiganj, was staying with her mother at Siddhirganj since May during her postpartum period.

She was supposed to return to her in-law's house in Cumilla a week later.

Now, Asma is blaming herself for bringing her daughter to Narayanganj.

Asma said Sumaiya's father, who was a security guard, died during the pandemic.

"She was my everything... now I lost her too...," Asma told this correspondent.

Unable to control herself, Asma started crying.

Her granddaughter, who was in her lap, began crying too.