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Download PDF After a long 19 days of duel with death, the little schoolgirl from Keraniganj finally gave in to her burn injuries early yesterday morning amid all the groaning and squealing at burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).
Eight-year-old Rehamoni was electrocuted by high-voltage power lines while she was playing on a rooftop of a two-storied building near her house. Her untimely death comes as a wake up call to city residents who sometimes have to leave their children unattended.
“How can I go on without her now? Why didn’t Allah take my life instead of hers?” said Reha’s wailing mother Chandra Banu, sitting next to her daughter’s lifeless body at the DMCH burn unit.
Reha’s two sisters and two brothers were also found weeping. Their father Ahsanullah, who runs a sand trawler business at Kholamora in Keraniganj, was pacing back and forth in the hallway in an attempt to comprehend why he was having to face this horrible affair of losing his beloved child before his very eyes.
It was just another afternoon on July 15, when Reha, a class three student at Nayabazar Primary School in Keraniganj, and Sheila, a neighbour and a class eight student, were playing the blind man’s buff (Kanamachhi) on the roof of a nearby two-storied building.
At around 4:00pm, “Shila’s scarf was blown away by a strong wind and the scarf got tangled in the high-voltage electric lines that runs by the roof of the house,” Ahsanullah told The Daily Star quoting Reha.
Sheila then held Reha from behind so that Reha could lean on the edge of the roof and fetch the tangled up scarf off the power cable. “My daughter fell on the wires as she reached for the scarf,” said the father while wiping off tears from his cheek.
Reha’s contact with the cables set off sparks and smoke, burning 37 percent of her body including her back, back of her head and both of her legs.
Soon after hearing the sound of sparks and screams of the young girl, neighbours rushed to her rescue and took her to Malancha Hospital in the area. Reha was immediately transferred to the DMCH in a critical condition.
Reha passed away at 3:30 in the morning yesterday at the DMCH burn unit despite all life saving measures taken by the doctors. Her right arm had to be amputated and she was operated on five times before her death.
Reha was buried at their family graveyard in Kholamora in the evening. An unnatural death case was filed with Keraniganj Police Station.
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