Kalidas Roy, Natore
It was the victory of humanity. A poor couple at Bagatipara under Natore district had saved with great trouble some money to visit India for their treatment but by watching the condition of the distressed people trapped in their houses without any scope of earning during this coronavirus scare, they donated all their savings to help those people. The couple has been identified as Ziaur Rahman and Shirin Akhter of Rail Gate area of Bagatipara upazila in Natore district.
Ziaur Rahman is an assistant of a contractor and his wife is a ward leader of Ansar-VDP. They do not have their own house, they live by raising a cottage on railway land. For last three-days, the couple was visiting houses of the poor people and was distributing food materials to them from their own savings.
Shirin Akhter has been suffering from heart, kidney and spinal chord complications for last eight-year. She and her husband save some money with great hardship and she takes treatment of her disease from a doctor in India. They also saved some money to visit India recently for the treatment but before their visit to India for treatment, the Coronavirus spread throughout the world and the country.
As the government ordered to maintain social distance for people and closed the business establishments, low-income people, mainly, daily wage earners turned jobless and started to live under utter misery. Finding such situation, Shirin-Zia couple decided to help those distressed people by donating their last asset of savings they preserved for the treatment. By purchasing various goods including rice, potato, vegetables, edible oil and soap, they were distributing those to those needy, hungry people.
While talking to the journalist, the couple mentioned, they do not have the ability to purchase land to make their house that is why they were staying by making cottage on railway land. They have two children- elder son studies in the department of Civil Engineering at Rajshahi Polytechnic Institute while another child reads at a Hafezia madrasha.
Shirin said, the humanity should get the first priority. There are hundreds of billionaires in this country but most of them are miser and they never think for humanity or for the poverty stricken people. They only think of money and nothing else. She seeks their good-will from Allah mentioning she had always thought for the poverty stricken people.
She said, ' It is unlikely I shall eat three fair meal a day while my neighbours starve. Allah will never forgive us if we always remain busy to fill our stomacks". She concluded with the remark, "Let the people survive at first then I shall think about my treatment.”