Challenged girl rescued from burning shanty

Her parents briefly left the house in the capital's Tejgaon Rail Colony area yesterday morning, leaving her inside and alone when a fire broke out there.

The 13-year-old physically-challenged girl, who remains confined to a wheelchair all the time and cannot speak properly, only uttered “ma” as the fire was raging in the shanty.

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The girl, Batashi, cannot move her arms and legs. She even lost the sight in her right eye at an early age.

Fortunately, four policemen of Tejgaon Railway Outpost were near the scene at the time. One of them, with the help of the girl's father and two others, went inside the shack and pulled Batashi to safety.

“As soon as we saw the flames, we rushed to the spot and saw the father screaming for help to save his daughter,” said Siddiqur Rahman, a constable of the outpost, who risked his life to rescue Batashi.

“We shoved the corrugated sheet walls of the shanty aside and rescued her,” he added.

Although the girl was not hurt, she was traumatised by the incident.

Talking to this correspondent, Batashi's father Abdul Kadir said he was outside when the fire began. His wife, Anowara Begum, too was not home as she, along with some neighbours, went to a nearby church to collect “ration”.

Anowara said she rushed home when she heard about the fire. However, Batashi was safe by the time she reached home.

They had been living in the slum since 1988 when their village home in Sherpur's Nokla was washed away by flood, she said.

The couple also has a son who forsook them after his marriage.

Kadir said that as Batashi cannot do anything by herself and needs constant attention, they cannot leave her alone and work outside. For this reason, they had to resort to begging.

They take Batashi in the wheelchair out on the streets in the afternoon and seek alms until night every day, he said.

They manage to earn around Tk 300 to Tk 350 every day, Kadir said, adding that with the earnings, they run the family, buy some medicines for Batashi and pay the room rent of Tk 1,600.

Asked about Batashi's treatment, he said they took Batashi to Dhaka Child Hospital thrice, but she did not recover. Doctors told them that her treatment was expensive.

Yesterday, a man suffered burns and at least 30 shanties were reduced to ashes in the fire that broke out around 9:00am. Eight units of Fire Service and Civil Defence doused the flames around 10:20am, said Belal Hossain, a duty officer at fire service headquarters.

The injured, Manik, 30, was admitted to the burn unit of Dhaka Medical College Hospital with 16 percent of his body burnt, hospital sources said.

Moyna Begum, one of the fire victims, said she could not save anything, not even Tk 50,000 she borrowed from a local Samity on Thursday. She had a tea stall just in front of her hut, but that too was gutted in the fire.