By Sajjad Hossain
 
DHAKA, May 27, 2025 (BSS) – In recent times, Saikat, 19, had started to consider himself a much grown up and more responsible person. His father is already old and he can no longer bear this much pressure.
 
As a son, he has to take responsibility for the family. Something has to be done as soon as possible.
 
But nothing was done for Saikat. He was not allowed to do it. The cruel bullet did not allow him to do it. Saikat's life ended before it began as a victim of state terrorism.
 
Shahrina Afroz Supti, 26, the elder sister of Mahamudur Rahman Saikat, who was shot by the police on July 19 during the quota reform movement, was speaking these words in a tearful voice.
 
Saikat's eldest sister Sabrina Afroz Sebanti, 23, reminisced about her brother and said, 'How old was my brother? My brother, a piece of my heart, wanted to study computer science and engineering.”
 
“Saikat wanted to be a great computer engineer. But a bullet from the assassin took away all his dreams and aspirations. Death ended all his hopes, aspirations and desires,” said Sebanti.
 
After a short pause, she said again, “You know, the bullet entered my brother’s head from one side and exited the other side along with his brain. It was all over immediately.”
 
“What would have happened if the killer had not shot him in the head but in another part of his body? If he had been shot anywhere else in his body, our brother would have been paralyzed and still alive before our eyes,” she said, crying.
 
A BSS reporter recently spoke to the members of the martyr’s family at their rented house on Nurjahan Road in Mohammadpur in the capital.
 
The parents are speechless after losing their lively, cheerful, dreamy son. The two sisters are also silent after losing their brother. No one in the family, who has become stoned by the grief of losing a relative, says anything unnecessary.
 
Even after almost 10 months, the family members have not been able to normalize themselves.
 
Stating that the police officer who shot Saikat has been identified, Sebanti said, “Mohammad Shahriar Alam, the in-charge of Mohammadpur Rayer Bazar police outpost, shot my brother.”
 
After the shooting, the crowd present asked the killer policeman, ‘Why did you shoot the boy?’ Then he said, ‘Don’t you see, he was disturbing you,” she said, quoting eyewitnesses.
 
She said, “My brother’s killer has not been arrested yet, and there is no progress in the case. We want my brother’s killer not to roam freely. He should be tried. But we also want no innocent person to be harassed.”
 
Shaheed Saikat’s mother Afroza Rahman, 45, said that from the beginning of the movement, there was always restlessness in him.
 
He would say, ‘So many students are dying, and I am helpless, sitting at home and unable to do anything.’
 
He could not go to the movement due to his parents’ obstruction, which is why he went on a hunger strike on July 18.
 
“He never ate food from his mother's hand. But that evening, he broke his hunger strike after eating food from his mothers’ hand,” said Shahrina Afroz Supti.
 
Mahamudur Rahman Saikat was 19 years old. He was martyred coincidentally on July 19. He was born in Dhaka on September 11, 2004. He was the only brother of two sisters. He was the youngest.
 
He had passed the HSC examination (science) from Government Mohammadpur Model School and College and was preparing for admission to the honors. He also passed the SSC from the same institution.
 
Saikat was shy, calm and introverted. Saikat was crazy about cricket. His favorite bat and ball are still lying at home.
 
Cycling was also Saikat's favorite hobby. His father still washes his bicycle. He stands silently next to the bicycle. He cries alone. He has no son. He talks to the bicycle in a loud voice.
 
No matter how mischievous Saikat was to his family members and friends, outsiders had no way of understanding it. Of the two sisters, Saikat was closest to Sebanti.
 
“We, two sisters, raised our younger brother like a bird. We affectionately called him Tuna and Tunapoka. However, among his two sisters, he had more affection for me, and they also quarreled more. Because we were both of the same age,” said Sebanti.
 
On July 19, during the quota reform movement, Mahamudur Rahman Saikat was shot in the head in front of the government primary school on Nurjahan Road in Mohammadpur in the capital at around 3:37 pm.
 
Saikat collapsed on the road as soon as he was shot. Some of the protesters caught him and took him to the hospital.
 
Later, relatives found Mahamudur’s bloody body with a bandage on his head in the morgue of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital.
 
The cause of death was written as ‘gunshot’.
 
The body was taken directly from the hospital to Markazul Islam in Mohammadpur and kept there after bathing. He was not brought home that day.
 
The next day, Saikat was buried at the Mohammadpur Jame Masjid graveyard.
 
Mahamudur Rahman Saikat's father, 64-year-old Mahbubur Rahman, has a business called 'Dai Ghar' near his house on Nurjahan Road. His son used to help him in the business. He used to work in the shop.
 
On July 19, Mahbubur Rahman was in Sandwip, Chattogram for family work. That day, Saikat went to the shop too. But a little later, he returned again and called his mother who was praying, saying that a friend of his had been shot and left. This was his last visit.
 
Sebanti said that since his brother's death, his father had been sitting there crying even when he went to the shop. He goes from the shop to the place where his brother was shot and died and stands alone.
 
She said, 'Saikat used to keep a cat. After he died, the cat stopped eating and drinking. We had to feed it with great difficulty. It still runs here and there all of a sudden and keeps calling meow... meowing and looking for Saikat.”
 
Saikat's school friend Md Zarifur Rahman said, "Killers of potential students like Saikat should be tried. That day, I was at a different spot in the movement. I received a call that he had been shot a little before 4 am.”
 
He said, “The students will protest, the government will want to stop the movement. But the process of stopping this movement cannot be stopped by killing people," said Zarifur.
 
Another friend of Saikat, Bayezid, said, "Saikat was my best friend. Among his friends, he was a simple-minded, philanthropic, unassuming and happy youth. He was not hypocritical in any matter.”
 
“Saikat would jump into any trouble with his friends. He would help the sick by donating his own blood. He would jump in before anyone else in any service work. I want fair justice for the murder of everyone who died, including Saikat," he said.
 
On August 25, 2024, Shaheed Mahamudur Rahman Saikat's father filed a case with Mohammadpur Police Station regarding his son's murder.
 
And on October 7, 2024, he filed a complaint with the International Crimes Tribunal. So far, 13 people have been accused in the case.