Bibi Ayesha had toiled day and night as a household services worker to rear her four children in Dhaka, the city she had hardly known.

When she thought that she could finally fall back on her eldest son, he died. Shakil Hossain, a 23-year-old hard-working man, was shot twice in the head during the student-mass protests at Mirpur 10 on August 4.

He died from his injuries while he was on life support at National Institute of Neurosciences and Hospital at around 2:30pm on August 7.

Ayesha and her husband, a fisherman, moved to Dhaka towards the end of 2013 looking for work after they had lost their house in Bhola to river erosion. It was a battle for her to fight alone after 2014, when her husband died from illness.

Shakil, Ayesha’s third child, dreamt of establishing himself in society and providing the family with a better living.

Shakil, a second-year student of fine arts at the University of Development Alternative, used to work as an accounts assistant at Amader Pathshala, a school for poor children, at Mirpur 12 and doubled up as an electrician to help her mother to run the family.

‘Shakil loved to paint and sing. He was interested in politics. He was organising secretary of the Dhaka metropolitan unit Bangladesh Students’ Federation,’ said Tofazzal Hossen, Shakil’s teacher at Amader Pathshala, where Shakil studied from Class VI to VIII.

He was granted a 50 per cent tuition fee waiver at the university. Amader Pathshala paid for the rest of his educational expenses.

As Ayesha grew older and could not keep her health, Shakil persuaded her mother to stop working six months ago. Two of her elder sisters are married off and his younger brother Sumon works in a clothing factory and earns Tk 10,000 a month.

Shakil, who had been involved in the protests seeking reforms in civil service job reservations from the beginning, came home, a one-room house rented at Mirpur 14, for a meal and rest for a while at 11:00am on August 4.

He left at 12:30pm and never returned, Ayesha said on September 2.

‘I want the state to remember my son’s sacrifice,’ the widow said, with eyes full of tears. ‘I want justice for his murder and his recognition as a martyr.’

The interim government on August 28 said that about 1,000 people died in student protests that culminated into a mass uprising, bringing down tge Awami League government on August 5.