Freedom she wrote
Star Report
Rumi wanted freedom and freedom she knew could come only in death. She finally got it from the teasers when she committed suicide by hanging herself Friday. But her memories came rushing back yesterday when she was laid to rest at her Roshangiri village under Fatikchhari thana. "I may not be there that day," Umme Habiba Rumi, a second year bright student of Nazirhat College, had written in her diary a few days before she was forced to commit suicide. Tormented by two local brothers Mohammad Azam and Mohammad Nazim, she wrote, "I do not know when I will get freedom... when the end will come to all my miseries and wounds. That day, I will not be here. But my memories will remain...they are eternal." But her painful memories could do little to arresting the two offenders. Police are yet to nab the two brothers two days after her death, who had teased and instigated her to commit suicide. Relatives alleged that police are not sincere about arresting the culprits. "They did nothing since Friday to arrest Azam or Nazim," said a cousin of Rumi. However, Additional Police Super of the district Abdul Khaleque refuted the allegations. "Police are looking for the accused brothers," he told The Daily Star yesterday. Rumi, daughter of Abul Kalam who works in Saudi Arabia, was continuously teased by the brothers -- Azam and Nazim -- who used to sledge her on her way to college. "When will I see an end to my pangs? None but Allah can smother them," Rumi felt. But her mother desperately looked for worldly solutions. Only a few days before her suicide, she asked the local Union Parishad chairman to hold an arbitration to stop teasing by the brothers. But this did not deter Azam and Nazim from their activities. And so, Rumi had to be laid to rest at her village graveyard yesterday afternoon after her father Abul Kalam had arrived from Saudi Arabia. "Who do I share my sorrows with?" Rumi's grief-ridden diary read. "Who will understand them? They will be sketched only on these lonely pages." But the father understood her bleeding heart as the cold, lifeless face of Rumi kept her eyes closed upon everything. He broke down in tears. Mother Monwara Begum passed out several times. "I demand capital punishment to those who harried my daughter to death," Kalam said in a broken voice. Neighbours alleged that one of the culprits, Azam, had a criminal track record. Following Rumi's suicide, the family members of Azam and Nazim went into hiding. UP Chairman Abdus Salam Talukder, who called the arbitration, also was not available for comments.
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