Moinuddin Sumon: Ayesha Begum, an elderly woman from Manikpur of Munshiganj, had been shot in the left leg on August 4, just a day before the Awami League regime was toppled amid a student-led mass uprising. Since then the 76-year old woman, who lives alone and begs for survival, has been struggling to get treatment for her wounded leg.

Describing how she got caught up in a clash on August 4, Ayesha told reporters, ‘I went to the road near Munshiganj General Hospital in the morning. A clash ensued there between the protesters and Awami League activists and I was caught up in it being shot in my left leg.’

Ayesha came to the Munshiganj press club on Monday with the help of two students in the hope of drawing the government’s attention through the media for her treatment.

She said that on August 4, she went to Munshiganj General Hospital with her wound, but she was sent back home after primary treatment.

The physicians there did not tell her that a bullet was lodged in her leg. She came to know about it from a private diagnostic centre at the district’s Thanarpul where she went with unbearable pain in the left leg.

An X-ray report there revealed a bullet in her leg.

‘I live on begging. I need money to remove the bullet,’ Ayesha, who has a severe speech impairment, told reporters with difficulty.

When journalists approached civil surgeon Monzurul Alam, he said that all the injured would receive treatment as per the government instructions.

‘We are including Ayesha’s name in the list. She will also receive treatment,’ he added.

Ayesha told reporters that she had been living on begging for many years now. She also said that her husband Lotif Sardar died of cancer many years ago and her children did not look after her. Local people said that her village home was in a different district.

The elderly woman, who lives in a rent-free room provided by a family, has to continue begging with her wounded leg for food and other costs that now includes medicines also.

The health affairs sub-committee of the Students Movement against Discrimination on September 28 said that it had enlisted 1,581 people killed and over 31,000 injured in the mass uprising that drove Sheikh Hasina to resign as prime minister and flee to India.

On November 13, many people who were injured during the uprising blocked the road in front of the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation in Dhaka city over mismanagement in their treatment.

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