Bangladesh witnessed one of the deadliest air disasters in its history on July 21, a plane crash that took with it the laughter of hundreds of children.
They were daughters and sons. Adored by their families.
It was a tragic blend of incompetence and cruelty, as the Yunus regime tried to hide the real death toll.
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While eyewitnesses speak of over 200 bodies, the official number remains 35, with the figures by the Bangladesh Army and the government differing significantly.
Students who dared speak the truth were brutally beaten.
The media have been suppressed, and journalists are pushed out of the crime scene.
This was not a rescue effort. It was a cover-up.
On Saturday morning, two people, including a child, died within two hours of each other.
One of them was a student at Milestone School, and the other an employee. Both were undergoing treatment at the Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in the capital.
Seventh-grade student Zarif Farhan, 13, died at around 9am while undergoing treatment at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) while school employee Masuma Begum, 38, died at around 10:45am.
They had 40% and 90% burns, respectively.
A day after the jet crash, the interim governmentโs top brass sat with their key political allies in a show of unity against the Awami League but spent no words on the mourning day.
Orange juice was served at the meeting, following which a smiling Muhammad Yunus and five of his advisers posed for a photo with the top leaders of the BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami, National Citizen Party, and Islami Andolan Bangladesh (IAB), featuring leaders like Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and Nahid Islam, at the state guest house Jamuna.
On that day, according to the army, 165 injured people were receiving treatment at various hospitals, but the government put it at 78.
Before the meeting, advisers Asif Nazrul and CR Abrar, and Yunusโ Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam were cordoned at the school for hours as hundreds and thousands of students, parents, teachers, and staff protested outside the campus at Uttara Diabari, condemning the attempts to hide dead bodies and cover up the death toll.
Later, the government deployed several hundred police members to disperse the protesters and bring out the advisers.
Meanwhile, another group of students demonstrated outside the Secretariat around 4pm, pressing for the resignation of advisers and the release of the actual list of the deceased. But no representative spoke to them. At one point, they broke open the gate and vandalised some motorcycles. At that time, the army and police personnel swooped on them, injuring over 75 students.
The national mourning day was tainted with blood due to Yunusโs repression, a betrayal not only of the affectedโliving and deadโbut also of the entire nation.
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