Shaheen Mollah

Dhaka city dwellers are suffering due to shortage of pipeline gas for two months and the authorities’ promises to solve the problem so far appear empty.

Three months ago, a devastating fire raged through a portion of Kalyanpur slum, killing a young man and injuring several others. The investigation by fire service officials found faulty electric connections behind it.

The government has almost completed the groundwork for rolling out Covid-19 vaccine in the country early next month.

At first glance, it looked like piles of trash jumbled together.

Showing the handmade card she made for her elder sister on her 17th birthday on October 9 last year, eight-year-old Reana Asif (not her real name), the younger sister of an English-medium school student in Dhanmondi who died after rape, said, “I will not spare the scoundrel who killed my sister. I want justice.”

Alamgir Hossain was fixing pieces of elastic thread to surgical masks using a heat pressing device inside a barely hundred square feet room in the Balurmath area of Kamrangirchar.

Abdur Rahim*, a private tutor in Dhaka, thought his life had finally stabilised after two decades of hard work. With a steady income, he could afford a place in the capital and sustain his family.

The family members of Benarasi weaver Mohammad Arman, who was wrongly arrested five years ago, are counting the minutes for his release.

Until Sunday night, the sidewalks in front of the Jatiya Press Club were teeming with protesters pressing their demands for various causes, but since yesterday morning the area has been deserted.

Rafique Sikder, a filmmaker, admitted his 55-year-old ailing mother Rawshan Ara to the capital’s Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) for kidney treatment on July 1, 2018.

Rahmat Mia, 23, lives in a tin-shed room with a monthly rent of Tk 3,500 with his wife, mother, sister and niece in Mohakhali’s Sat Tola slum.

When buses were being torched in Dhaka on November 12 afternoon, Zakir Hossain Siddiqui, a vice-president of Jubo Dal, was undergoing treatment for a blood disease at LabAid Hospital.

Hazrat Ali was selling grocery items at his shop on the first floor of Shegunbagicha kitchen market when a bus was set alight near Aziz Super Market in the capital’s Shabagh area around 1:40pm on Thursday.

Police checkposts stand just before the entrance of Mohammadpur Geneva Camp. A few steps into the camp, it’s the same old sight that used to be seen at the notorious drug den of the capital before the 2018 anti-narcotics crackdown.

The recent move by Dhaka South City Corporation to “reform” the city’s waste collection has not fared well with citizens, who say they are being charged excessively by the newly-appointed contractors, and the service is substandard.

Many stores in the capital have stopped selling potatoes over the last few days after the authorities fixed the prices and began to penalise overcharging sellers.

Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) has set up a mass casualty management centre to handle influx of patients due to disastrous incidents like Rana Plaza or Nimtoli tragedies.

Kohinur Begum (57) came to the capital 25 years ago with her husband, who was a rickshaw puller, and four sons from Bhola, as their house was destroyed by the nearby river.

With suspended ward councillor Erfan Salim behind bars, locals in Debidas Ghat Lane of the capital’s Chawkbazar are still afraid to talk out about his illegal activities.

It had nearly been an hour, but Khadiza Khatun was still moving from vendor to vendor with her empty bazaar bag in Tejgaon kitchen market.