The monsoon and the martyrs

July brings back memories. A calendar opens before me.

It was the year I performed Hajj and returned to Dhaka on July 5. Student-led half-day protests were being organized in a way that caused as little inconvenience to the public as possible. 

As a South Asian, I was struck by how thoughtful and disciplined the young organizers were.

I told a colleague we should connect with the protest leaders. In our human rights work, we had seen the pattern before: young protesters could be arrested, harmed or worse. If we knew them, it would be easier to follow up if something happened.

If memory serves me right, I met three bright young men in our office on July 8: Nahid Islam, Hasnat Abdullah and Sarjis Alam. Sarjis did most of the talking, in English. Nahid interjected a few times, but his eyes spoke more than his words. Hasnat arrived late because of traffic.

We exchanged contact details. They insisted the protest was peaceful and focused on the quota system for families of war veterans.

Less than ten days after meeting those three young men, Bangladesh changed.

Abu Sayed was killed. Anger followed.

It was also Ashura, the 10th of Muharram, which fell that year on July 16. It commemorates the martyrdom of one who stood against injustice, who refused to yield because the other side was stronger, and who chose death over compromise.

As I listened to the famous Urdu marsiya—

Yeh kaun zeewaqar hai, bala ka shehsawar hai,
Ke hai hazaar qatilon ke saamne data hua.

—the image that kept returning to me was Abu Sayed.

Karbala of Imam Hussain and Dhaka of July 2024. Centuries apart, yet animated by the same struggle: between those who hold power and those who demand justice…not power for themselves as individuals, but a fair share of power for the collective.

Then came the monsoon. Anger, rain and blood merged until Karbala seemed to return, as it has so many times in history.

On July 17, the crackdown turned brutal. There were the dead, the injured and the helpless running for safety. A generation that had come out asking for fairness was met with force.

At the same time, the zeewaqar—the dignified, the defenceless—helped one another.

The powerless joined hands. When hospitals shut their doors, people improvised. When doctors and nurses were expected to obey fear, many instead chose to take risks and treat their children, regardless of the orders of authority.

In this Karbala, Imam Hussain's army kept growing.

The forces arrayed against them became equally brutal. Even I saw bodies in what I had thought of as my refuge—Gulshan. In front of Gulshan Police Station, I watched men in uniform drag away bodies. I saw broken glass and a body lying on the pavement at Nutan Bazar.

The siege continued. So did the resistance.

I came to know many more soldiers of that resistance: men and women who opened their hearts to me, who shared their vulnerabilities, their fear and their grief, yet whose resilience, determination and faith in the cause they stood for remained unshaken.

What followed is known and well documented: more than 1,400 lives lost, countless others injured, blinded or permanently disabled.

Who gave the orders, and who carried them out, is now for the courts to determine. 

What I carry with me is the Karbala where Imam Hussain's army overthrew the tyrant.

Whether it overthrew Yazid—or the system that keeps producing Yazids—is another question.

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Huma Khan is a Social Justice, Rights and Development professional