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Published : 14 Apr 2026, 05:12 PM
Inside the morgue of the Cumilla Highway Crossing Police Station, seven bodies lay in a row. Beside one of them, Samiul Islam was wailing, clutching a purple T-shirt in his hands.
“I bought him this shirt,” Samiul cried as he thought of his brother.
“Sumon will never wear it again. Every year, he comes to me in Cumilla for work. This time, he lost his life.”
Sumon, identified by a single name, was among 13 men from north Bangladesh who boarded a rice-laden truck on Monday night, heading towards Cumilla in search of work.
To save on travel expenses, they sat atop the sacks of rice.
But their journey ended in tragedy early on Tuesday when the truck overturned in Hasanpur of Daudkandi on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway.
Seven died on the spot, crushed by the vehicle and the heavy rice bags. Six others were injured.
Sumon and Samiul hailed from Bhaigarh village in Dinajpur’s Birampur.
Samiul had already moved to the Feni-Cumilla region for work. Upon hearing of his brother's death, he rushed to the station and pulled the T-shirt out of Sumon's bag of clothes and mosquito nets.
Between sobs, he struggled with a heartbreaking question - what would he tell their parents back home?
Sohrab Hossain from Khaledpur has a similar story. His wife, Champa Akter, had begged him not to leave. But with two daughters to support, Sohrab set out for Cumilla for the first time as a day labourer.
His brother-in-law, Jasim Uddin, who came from Feni to claim the body, said Sohrab was looking for work harvesting paddy as opportunities were scarce in their home district.
Alamgir Hossain, general secretary of the Daudkandi unit of We Demand Safe Road - a social campaign for road safety, highlighted the economic desperation behind the tragedy.
"Bus fare from Dinajpur to Cumilla is at least Tk 1,500 for a single person. To save money, these workers board rice trucks for Tk 200 to 300. They are forced into this illegal and dangerous journey by poverty," he said.
He noted that if anyone had stopped the freight truck from carrying passengers, these lives might have been saved.
Alamgir added that survivors claimed the truck’s helper took the steering wheel at the Meghna Toll Plaza in Munshiganj.
The deceased have been identified as Mohammad Afzal Hossain, 35, Sohrab Hossain, 40, and Salek 45, from Nawabganj, as well as Sumon 21, Abu Hossain, 30, Bishu Mia, 35, and Abdur Rashid, 55, from Birampur.
