\\\'My son is not dead\\\'

“My son is not dead, he’s just missing. He’s not dead,” Sabbir Hasan’s father Hasanur Rahman says hoping his son, who went swimming off Saint Martin’s Island on the Bengali New Year Day, will come back alive. Four students of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST), Sabbir among them, went missing at sea off St Martin’s Island on Pahela Baishakh (April 14). Bodies of two have been recovered but Sabbir and his friend Ishtiaq Bin Mahmud Udoy remain untraced. Coastguards say they are continuing search for the duo, six days into the incident. Udoy’s father Mahmud Ullah Gazi, a retired official of a private company, recalled their last conversation. “Father, please pray for me. I’ll come back to Dhaka within four days of the Pahela Baishakh. And please ask mother not to worry,” Udoy told his father before leaving. Mahmud said he allowed his son to go on the tour after their examination. “Nine of them spent the night before their tour at my Basabo house,” he said. Udoy told him that 11 of them would go to Cox’s Bazar from Kamalapur and 21 others would join them at Saint Martin’s. “How could I know such a tragedy would follow?” he said with a blank gaze, according to bdnews24.com.