Wails fill Natore crash victims' homes

The tragedy was so heart-rending that even the friends and neighbours of those who lost their loved ones in the Natore road crash failed to hold back their tears while trying to console the grief-stricken families.

Some families lost two members, while others even up to six in Monday’s collision between two buses in the district’s Barhaigram that left at least 34 dead.

bdnews24.com correspondent, while on a visit to Barhaigram and Gurudapur on Tuesday saw shell-shocked families.

At around 9:15am, a funeral procession of hundreds of people was seen marching towards a burial ground from the Taranagar village.

The bodies of a man and his daughter were in one of the coffins the mourners carried.

A youth said Jamal Uddin, 38, and his daughter Jannati Khatun, 4, of Taranagar village died in the accident.

Uddin’s wife Zakia Khatun said her husband, their only daughter, and she were returning home from her father’s house at Hizli village on an Othoi Paribahan bus on Monday afternoon.

The accident happened when a Keya Paribahan bus collided head-on with the Othoi bus at Rejir Morh area around 4:15pm.

She said her husband and daughter died on the spot while she was injured and got admitted to a hospital at Banparha.

She came back home to see her husband and daughter for the last time.

Khatun repeatedly lost consciousness while speaking to the correspondent.

She said her husband had joined Jonaile Degree College as a Bangla department teacher in 2001, but, unfortunately, but had not been paid any salary for the past 14 years.

Khatun said Uddin was “not unhappy with his unpaid job, as he loved to teach.”

She said they were not badly off, which prompted them to get married and have a child.

But her world had been shattered because of at driver’s recklessness, she lamented.

Samad Mollah, father of Jamal Uddin, is a broken man after his son’s death. Two youths escorted him to the funeral ground.

He said he was proud of his highly educated son, but now everything seemed to have sunk into darkness.

People were similarly mourning the death of their loved ones in other villages, too.

After Taranagar, the correspondent went to Ikorhi, in Borhaigram, at around 10:30am, where people were preparing for the funeral prayers for Monirul Islam, 28, and his niece Sahina Khatun -- both killed in the same mishap.

Islam’s mother Sabina Yasmin had been critically injured and was undergoing treatment at the Bogra Combined Military Hospital.

Meanwhile, the funeral prayers for the 12 of the 14 victims hailing from Sidhuli village were held around 10:30 am and for two others after Johr prayers at Sidhuli Free Primary School ground.