Primary evidences point to, according to the police, suicides together by a day labourer and his wife, a domestic help, whose bodies were found hanging from the roof of a rented tin-shed room in East Rampura on Wednesday last. The deceased woman's brother living in an adjacent room narrated the background of the tragic incident, which sums up the unbearable living condition of a hapless segment of urban population.
People with no means of living in villages migrate to this mega melting pot called the capital city with dreams to ameliorate their financial condition. The lucky ones can be successful, often beyond their expectation, but there are others like the deceased couple in Rampura, the cry of whose soul in this soulless city goes unheard. In this case, the husband used to work as a leguna driver but he had to leave the job because he had no driving licence. He took to the uncertain and irregular job of day labour. As a domestic help, his wife's income, albeit a pittance, was comparatively more stable.
Yet the couple managed their family of two, somehow. But when the wife became pregnant and was at her advanced stage, things went from bad to worse with her admission to a private hospital in Kishoreganj in consideration of her health. She gave birth to a still-born but the hospital bill amounted to Tk 63,000, a little over half of which was paid by her parent's family and the husband made a loan of Tk 30,000 to pay the rest of the bill.
The loss of the baby put them into mental depression and now they had to pay every month an instalment of Tk 3,000 as loan repayment and Tk 3,500 as rent for the room they lived in. With the wife suffering from fever and the man's income becoming even more irregular, the couple recently failed to pay the room rent. All this proved too much, the brother of the deceased woman infers, for the grieving couple. Their dreams of welcoming their first child came to an abrupt end and the worsening pecuniary condition together might have led them to bring an end to their lives together.
It seems the two, unlike many of the couples of similar social standing, had understanding of each other. Most likely, they had sympathy enough and love too for each other. The couple bore their mental agony in silence. On the night they were found hanging, the woman's brother, on return from work, asked his wife if his sister and brother-in-law had taken their meals. It is clear enough that the deceased couple did not like to lose face even to their near and dear ones. Their incapacity and helplessness were so overwhelming that they would not seek help from their near and dear ones.
For simple people valuing their worth as human beings, begging is no option. Not all can beg or even ask for help. When all avenues close on people leading them to believe in the emptiness of life, they take the ultimate decision of ending their lives. It is because of such desperation, a woman abandoned by her husband in Gazipur early this year took poison before forcing her children to do the same so that they did not have to suffer the pangs of daily starvation. Another couple in that area also opted for a similar termination of their lives and sufferings from financial hardship.
Post-Covid economic turmoil has thrown vulnerable people into unending misery made worse by greedy and crafty people in control of the employment and commodity markets. The government's social safety net programmes have been abused and misused by people in charge at the field level. This is why several TCB cards are issued to one family and also to undeserving candidates to the neglect of people like the deceased couple.
nilratanhalder2000@yahoo.com