Rabbi’s martyrdom yet to get recognition

In the early hours of August 5, two young women were frantically searching for their 17-year-old brother, Ismail Hossen Rabbi, who had gone missing after leaving home the previous day to join the Anti-Discrimination student movement, breaking the lock on their tin-roofed house.
After hours of desperate searching, an Ansar member at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital morgue showed them several photographs. Among them, they found Rabbi — lying lifeless on a stretcher, a single gunshot wound visible on his forehead, part of his brain exposed.
“Seeing the photo of my brother, my whole universe turned upside down,” said Mim Akter, one of Rabbi’s sisters.
The sisters requested the morgue authorities to release their brother’s body but were told they first needed to prove their relationship.
When they asked how to do so, the authorities instructed them to bring police officers from the Jhigatola police box, who had reportedly left Rabbi at DMCH.
“However, when we sent our maternal uncles to the Jhigatola police box, they were chased away,” Mim said.
“We begged the morgue authorities, explaining that the police wouldn’t come, but they didn’t listen,” Mim added. “We were terrified they would disappear his body, just as we had heard happened to other students.”
Later that afternoon, when protesting students arrived to retrieve the bodies of others, the sisters asked for their help. With the students’ assistance, they managed to recover Rabbi’s body from the morgue and, after pleading repeatedly, secured a death certificate from Ward 7.
However, the certificate only listed his name and date of death, without mentioning the cause, even though his forehead visibly bore a bullet wound.
Mim and her sister Mitu then hurriedly carried the body away, fearing the police might stop them.
“All my life, I thought my brother would carry our coffin one day. Never in my worst nightmare did I imagine that we would be carrying his,” Mim said. “There are even videos of us, with the help of students, carrying my brother’s body from the hospital,” she added.
Despite possessing ample evidence — including photographs of Rabbi’s body, videos of their struggle to retrieve him, and a death certificate — the sisters remain unable to secure their brother’s martyr status.
Rabbi’s name is absent from the martyr list, leaving them uncertain where to seek recognition for his sacrifice.
Furthermore, their attempts to file a case in court have been thwarted due to the lack of a postmortem report, a critical document they were never given.
After Rabby’s burial in Madaripur, his sisters and student movement coordinators met with the DMCH director, who denied their request for a death certificate listing the cause of death, instructing them to get one from the local government instead.
“After getting the certificate from our Panchkhola Union Parishad chairman, we returned to submit it to the hospital authorities. However, the director said that he had been directed by the newly appointed health adviser to take more time, and the certificate would be provided eventually,” said Mitu Akter, Rabby’s sister.
“More than a month has passed, and that time has still not come. My brother still hasn’t received official recognition as a martyr,” she added.
In the meantime, the family spoke with several coordinators about where to go for the enlistment process, but they simply pointed to one another, and no one seemed to know the exact place to get this done.
“Is this our responsibility? If the government requires verification, they should direct us to a specific location. Many families of martyrs like us are in the same situation; they also don’t know where to turn. Many bodies have disappeared or been burned to ashes. How will they be enlisted? This independence was earned at the cost of their lives — do their lives hold no value? Will they receive no recognition?” asked Mim.
According to Mim, Rabby was a second-semester student at Shariatpur Polytechnic Institute.
Rabby’s father, Md Miraz Talukder, a van driver by profession, lives hand to mouth. His mother, Asma Begum, teaches Arabic to students, while Mim manages daily expenses through private tutoring and sent money to Rabby to cover his living costs at the mess.
“When I found out he had joined the protest in Shariatpur, we brought him back to Sayedabad, where we live. He had even been hit by a rubber bullet on July 19 at Shahbagh,” said Mim.
“By the end of July, when many students were losing their lives and social media was flooded with images and videos of injured or dead students and civilians, he refused to stay home, despite our pleas.”
“On August 4, while we were at tuition, he somehow managed to unlock the door and leave. After that, I couldn’t reach him by phone.
“In our last conversation on August 3, he said, ‘You’re worrying about me? What about Mugdha Bhai or Abu Sayed Bhai? They’re already martyrs. If I die, I’ll be one too.’ He did become a martyr, but hasn’t received that recognition yet.”
On September 25, the sisters managed to meet with Information Adviser Md Nahid Islam alongside the family members of another victim — Miraj Hossain.
The adviser assured all martyrs and injured individuals will be included in the official list.