Just minutes before police bullets tore through his young body, 19-year-old Nazim Uddin called his mother. “Ma, I’ll be home in 10 minutes,” he said. Those were the last words Shimula Akter ever heard from her son.
Moments later, on the afternoon of August 5, Nazim lay lifeless on a Dhaka street, shot in the face during a student protest of the July Uprising outside Uttara East Police Station. The bullet pierced through his left eye and exited the back of his head, extinguishing a promising life shaped by sacrifice and dreams of a better future.
A dream built on hardship
Nazim hailed from Bhathgao village in Netrokona’s Barhatta upazila, where his parents long struggled to rise above poverty. Determined to educate their son, his mother worked as a domestic help and his father as a day laborer in Tongi, scraping together enough to keep him in school.
Nazim was a bright student — securing a GPA of 4.39 in his SSC exams from Tahera Mannan Smriti High School before enrolling in the science stream at Barhatta Government College. Recently, he had come to Dhaka to be with his parents, hoping to ease their loneliness amid the swelling tide of the July movement.
The last call
On that fateful day, Nazim had gone out telling his family he would be back soon. His uncle, Jasim Uddin, remembers watching news of the intensifying protests on TV. “I told my sister-in-law not to let Nazim go out,” he recalled. “But Nazim slipped out, saying he’d just be back.”
By Maghrib prayer time, the family’s worst fears began to unfold. An unknown protester answered Nazim’s phone and said simply, “The owner of this phone has been shot.”
When Nazim’s father, Rostom Ali, and brother-in-law rushed to Uttara Crescent Hospital that evening, they were met by three army personnel who tried to soften the blow. “Uncle, nothing has happened to your son,” they said. But inside, the grim truth awaited. His brother-in-law was led to the third floor, where he had to pick Nazim’s blood-soaked body from among several others.
At 8 PM, the hospital handed over the body. From there, Nazim’s journey home began — first to a madrasa in Tongi for bathing and funeral prayers, then finally to his village. Under a night sky heavy with grief, he was laid to rest in the family’s tiled graveyard.
A father’s shattered world
“I feel like my whole world has gone blank,” Nazim’s father wept. “I couldn’t even afford to educate him further. But he would tell me, ‘Abba, let me study one more year — someday I’ll take care of you.’”
Gesturing to his son’s newly built grave, Rostom’s voice cracked. “We made this nice with help from the community. If even a scratch comes to it, my heart will break.”
“We wanted a new Bangladesh”
To Nazim’s uncles, his death was not in vain. “This was a movement to build a new Bangladesh,” said his elder uncle, Arab Ali. “People couldn’t vote, couldn’t speak. This movement gave hope for change.”
Younger uncle Jasim Uddin recounted how Nazim insisted on joining the protest. “Kaka, I have to go. We’re studying for a future — for a country where there is justice.”
Reflecting on his nephew’s sacrifice, he added, “We’ve often been denied our votes, denied justice. Without this movement, nothing would change. If the country becomes better from this, we are grateful.”
A plea for justice
Yet the family’s pain remains raw. They now demand justice for Nazim’s death. “Those who planned this killing must be held accountable,” said Jasim Uddin. “So that no other parents have to bury their children and weep with broken hearts.”
