Nightmares and sleepless nights in Bangladesh

Remembering hope: Young people celebrating the one year anniversary since the overthrow of the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina. Bangladeshis need to overcome their political trauma and seize the opportunity of reform, says the writer. — AFP

ZAKIR Shikder could tell from the grinding noise of the bone saw that he was losing a part of his body. His leg was being amputated. A couple of days before that he had found himself amid thousands of others like him, protesting the tyranny of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was directing the use of lethal weapons on the very people she had sworn to protect. One of the bullets fired from one of those lethal weapons pierced through the bones of Zakir. The emptiness below his left thigh would forever remind him of that July in 2024.

Zakir would live to tell his horrific story. Sohel would not. He, too, was shot during those fateful days.