Journalist Jayasree reminisces over life after her children’s demise

Journalist Jayasree Zaman's days are now spent reminiscing fond memories of her children.

Her teenage daughter and son committed suicide on Tuesday night.

Relatives say parent's divorce, mother's woes and issues like self-respect led the brother and sister to kill themselves.

Zaman found her eighteen-year-old daughter Chirosree Zaman and son Mohammad Bin Alim, 15, hanging from the ceiling of her Uttara home when she returned from work.

She is a Senior Sub-editor at the national news agency, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha. Her former husband lives in China after their divorce, seven years back.

"I have faced a lot of hardship with my children since the divorce. I used to do laundry throughout the night and then used to put make-up in the morning, so that they (the children) could not understand that I was up all night. I have not spent a single day without them. How will I live now?" Zaman said.

"They left to relieve me of the miseries."

While speaking to bdnews24.com at her sister's house on Friday, Zaman broke down and her voice was choking.

"I came back home with pizza, burgers for the children. Knocked the door for hours but no one opened and I was panicking.

"I called up the caretaker and told him to force open the door. A neighbour also came. She entered my apartment when the caretaker opened the door. She came back after a while and told me 'don't go inside, you will not be able to stand the sight inside'," she said following a pause.

"I peeked through only to find my son hanging; could not see my daughter's body. Alas! I had hugged both of them when I left for office in the morning," said Zaman.

She rubbished reports ran by some media of her children being drug-addicts.

"How come the children who always wanted to stay along with their mother, should take drugs?

"Chirosree got ‘A’ grade in eight subjects in this year's A-level exams. Not a single newspaper reported this," said an agitated Zaman.

Zaman and her children's father Alimul Haque Tipu got divorced seven years ago.

"I have been married to Tipu for 14 years. Tipu had lot of flaws, but I had forgiven him thinking that he had lost his mother during childhood. But I could not forgive him when I came to know he was cheating me for another woman. We got a divorce."

Zaman said that she moved to her sister's house with her children after the divorce.

"After a few days, I rented a one-room apartment at Uttara. I used to meet ends by giving private tuitions and doing a low-paid job at an English medium school. Then I got the job at the Bangladesh Sangbah Sangstha (BSS)."

The BSS job was not a permanent one, according to Zaman.

"A few people will lose their jobs at BSS after this year and I will be one of them. The children came to know it and asked me what would happen to us if I lost the job after December this year."

Zaman's elder sister Tilottoma said that their father removed a picture of Chirosree with him a few days ago from his facebook profile, which had hurt the brother and sister a lot.