Life is precious, as long as losing a life does not hamper an ongoing event in any way. Naimul Abrar Rahat, a student of Class 9 of Dhaka Residential Model College (DRMC), lost his life after being electrocuted during the annual fest of Kishor Alo, a periodical by news giant Prothom Alo, being held in the DRMC premises on the 1st of November. Every year, Kishor Alo holds their KiAnondo festival in presence of school-going students from all over the city.
Participants and audience claim that the death of Abrar had been kept a secret from everyone involved, including the authority for the sake of smooth running of the festival. He was carried out of the premises secretly in his uniform and transported to the Universal Medical at Mohakhali from Mohammadpur.
Both Kishor Alo and the Chief Editor Anisul Hoque have released their official statements on the incident via Kishor Alo’s Facebook page. The profile picture and cover photo clearly depict the tragedy of the incident, but they were not uploaded until social media burst out in protest of Abrar’s death. Until then, the page was only filled with celebratory posts.
The electrocution of Abrar was neither reported to the authorities, nor the parents. Participants claim he was “sneaked” out to Mohakhali, where he was declared dead.
The doctors recognizing the uniform, informed the college authorities, who then informed the parents. The entire process had a system loss of three hours. Needless to say, Mohammadpur is filled with private hospitals and Suhrawardi Hospital is just across the street from DRMC. According to the official statement available in the page, Abrar’s death was not primarily reported because he was taken into the medical camp by Universal Medical where the doctors had been tending to him. He was not taken to Suhrawardi, or any other hospital in Mohammadpur because the doctors made a judgement call at a time of crisis, and therefore waited for an ambulance to shift him to a hospital three hours away. This shows clear negligence of life. Furthermore, this could also have been a precautionary measure for the program to end smoothly. The further away the problem, the less it is visible.
And Kishor Alo does not even deny it when they say in point 2 that the show must go on. They clearly state that such accidents are normal and therefore a compromise in their annual event is unacceptable. They even said that they had no idea of the death, and therefore they did not stop the event. The exact time of electrocution/death could not be confirmed but judging from this statement, it can be inferred that he passed on while the event was still running.
The students from the event confirm that Abrar was linked to DRMC by his attendants at Universal Medical checking his uniform, when in point 3 Kishor Alo mentions that the reason they did not inform DRMC is because they could not determine which institution he was from when in the medical camp. They even claimed to have tried to find any sort of connection with Abrar.
They even confirm that the general volunteers were not even informed of the tragedy in their own event. The entire incident was being overseen by their elites only. They rushed their volunteers off from the venue as soon as the event was over. They, however, have agreed to halt all forthcoming events of Kishor Alo in light of this tragedy. And Kishor Alo has rejected all Facebook posts saying that none of the people making the posts were present at the time of the incident, and whatever they said is false.
Furthermore, Anisul Hoque, in his statement, said that he knew about the tragedy from 4 PM and that Abrar’s death was confirmed well after (some 15/20 minutes) the event was over. This directly contradicts with the post by the page that says that news of his death came immediately after the final show.
Needless to say, the statements are very incoherent. Kishor Alo even removed the Facebook Event for KiAnondo as well.
We can never get back the life of Naimul Abrar Rahat. The negligence of the organizers today, perhaps cost the life of a bright mind with many dreams. This is outrageous. An event can never be more important than an individual’s life. If any of what the audience claim is true, then Kishor Alo is first responsible for hiding news of a death, then for trying to carry him far away for the sake of the event, while also forgetting to release a statement until after everyone got furious. It is improbable for an institution of this scale to have made so many improbable discrepancies at a series. Today, what we have left are thoughts and prayers, because given the secrecy with which the entire thing happened, it is next to impossible to truly know what happened to Abrar.