Life on Fire: Victims of Petrol bomb

Continuous strikes, blockades and extreme violence has turned regular expression and political protests into a campaign of violence upon the general public, forging innocent people into the victims of violent attacks. Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), Burn Unit doctors said that most of the petrol bomb victims were burnt from 20 percent to 40 percent of their bodies. At least 76 people have been killed and 225 people have been burnt in petrol bomb attacks across the country during political blockade started in January, 2015. A continuous blockade interspersed with hartals (general strikes) has been going on since the 6th January, 2015. It was called by the 20-Party Alliance demanding the resignation of the Awami League government which came into power through the one-sided election of the 5th January. The protests have become increasingly violent and nearly 1,000 vehicles have been torched or vandalized. The security forces have in turn arrested more than 10,000 opposition supporters while more than a dozen protesters have been shot dead, prompting allegations of a shoot-to-kill strategy. There has been an outbreak of violence and innocent ordinary people are being killed. Petrol bomb attacks on vehicles in Bangladesh are leaving people dead, destroying families and terrorizing normal society. Dhaka. Bangladesh

Growing up in a developing country filled with millions of impoverished people and abused children, I had access to the darkest corners of the world. Overwhelmed with compassion and empathy for those people in my photographs, I was determined to give a voice to the voiceless and have it heard around the world. However, at one point I realized that just effectively reporting the human rights injustices through my images was not enough. I repeatedly asked myself then; what changes have my photos brought to the lives of my subjects of abuse and suffering? I knew that as a photojournalist that it was my duty to tell the truth but besides that, as a human being I believed that it was my moral duty to find ways to alleviate the pain of abuse and poverty of those people in my photographs. It was at that time that I decided to dedicate myself to what became more than 10 years of my life to photographing 'Survivors'. This resulted in a self-published photography book depicting the invincibility of the human spirit to survive against all odds. The proceeds from the book and subsequent exhibitions go to helping the subjects in that book set up small businesses for which I train them and monitor their progress in order to make them and their families self-sufficient.