Road accident claims lives of mother and daughter in Feni as family awaits migrant relatives for funeral

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A profound sense of mourning has descended upon the Majumdar household in Feni’s Phulgazi upazila, where relatives gathered Sunday morning to receive the remains of a mother and daughter killed in a horrific road accident. Zakia Akhter, 38, and her 20-year-old daughter, Wahida Akhter, perished on Saturday night after an autorickshaw carrying them collided head-on with a pickup truck near the Phulgazi Rural Electrification office. A third passenger, 32-year-old Mohammad Kawsar, also died in the crash.

The victims had been returning home after visiting a relative suffering from cancer. Although they were mere moments from their doorstep when the tragedy occurred, they finally arrived home Sunday morning—nearly 10 hours later—in a refrigerated hearse. Their bodies remained in the vehicle, parked in their courtyard, as family members waited for the return of Zakia’s husband, Nurer Safa Majumdar, from Saudi Arabia, and their son-in-law, Kazi Azad Hossain, from Italy, before proceeding with the funeral rites.

The impact of the loss has devastated the household. Zakia’s remaining two children, Ashraful Islam and Mehjabin, were left speechless by the sudden bereavement. Meanwhile, Zakia’s 70-year-old mother, Momena Khatun, who lived with her daughter and grandchildren, remained inconsolable, repeatedly calling out their names while refusing food.

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Family members recalled that Zakia had spoken to her son via telephone just before the accident, promising to return home shortly. Her brother-in-law, Shah Alam Majumdar, noted that the family had recently experienced a sense of completeness, having finished a new house and seeing Wahida married to an expatriate. That domestic stability was shattered in an instant, leaving the family to grapple with a grief that feels hauntingly familiar.

Zakia’s sister, Monwara Begum, who had arrived from Dubai only days earlier for a reunion that never occurred, lamented the brutal nature of their deaths. The tragedy has echoed a painful history for the family; residents noted that 14 years ago, in December 2012, another relative, Sultana Raziya, was killed in a similar road accident. For the Majumdar family, the loss of Zakia and Wahida has reopened old wounds, casting a shadow of profound despair over a home that was meant to be a place of homecoming.