Mohammad Mubin, now 20, moved to Dhaka after his father’s death in 2024 to work as a shop assistant. His home in Shariatpur is some 86 kilometres away. One of his brothers also joined him, as they struggled to support their family back home, including a sick mother and disabled elder brother.
Today, he is completely blind — recognising people only by the sound of their voices and tracing walls with his hands to move around.
On July 18, 2024, during a break from work, he joined a protest linked to the student-led anti-discrimination protest against government job quotas, which was sweeping the country at that time. He was in the front row of the march. Moments later, he was struck in the head by a bullet.
“It felt like someone had hit me hard on the head with a hammer. The world went dark,” Mubin recalls.
Bystanders rushed him to a hospital. Doctors performed eight surgeries to treat his injuries and remove the bullet. “I never imagined I would go blind,” he tells Eos.
Despite extensive treatment, his sight never returned. He is still living with the consequences of that day’s shooting.
Two years after the protests that toppled Sheikh Hasina, the youngsters who participated in 2024’s ‘July Uprising’ are still living with the consequences — some in parliament, some in classrooms and some in permanent darkness…
THE PRICE OF PROTEST
Mubin survived. Mahmudur Rahman Saikat, 19, did not. He was shot dead by police in Mohammadpur, Dhaka, on July 19, 2024, during the student-led nationwide movement, now known as the July Uprising, that led to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster and exile.
Two years on, Saikat’s sister Sabrina Afroz Sabnati is still struggling to come to terms with the loss of her only brother. “Whenever I achieve something, that’s when I miss him the most,” she tells Eos.
“The July uprising changed our family’s life completely. Nothing has been the same since,” Sabnati adds.
Mubin and Sabnati’s stories are far from unique. The July 2024 uprising ended Sheikh Hasina’s 16-year rule, but its consequences extended far beyond politics, reshaping the lives of thousands of young people. Some lost family members, while others were left with permanent disabilities, such as Mubin.
The human cost was immense. According to a fact-finding report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), nearly 1,400 people were killed and 13,529 injured in protest-related violence between July 1 and August 15, 2024. The report also said hundreds suffered serious eye injuries from pellet ammunition used by security forces.
Two years on, the impact of the July movement has not faded. Some are still living with physical scars. Others continue to grieve the loss of loved ones. For some, the movement has opened a new chapter in life.
SOME TO PARLIAMENT, OTHERS TO CLASSROOMS
Nusrat Tabassum, 25, is one such example. She was one of the coordinators of the July 2024 movement. She is now an opposition lawmaker and serves as joint convener of the National Citizen Party (NCP), founded by student leaders of the uprising, and chief organiser of its women’s wing.
Two years ago, she was on the streets demanding changes to the country’s political system. Today, she is part of the law-making process as a member of parliament.
“I was involved in student politics then, now I am in national politics,” Tabassum tells Eos. “Being in parliament comes with a much heavier workload. I hardly have any time for myself.” She sees it as a natural progression. “It was meant to be.”
However, she does not believe the movement’s aspirations have been fully realised. She says the current government has moved away from the reform agenda that emerged from the July movement.
One of the defining images of the July 2024 movement was that of Nusrat Jahan. Standing in front of a police prison van, she shouted, “Run over me.” Inside the van were several protesters arrested during the movement. The image later became one of the defining symbols of the uprising.
Nusrat Jahan’s life has taken a different direction from that of Tabassum. Instead of entering politics, she returned to her studies and is now studying law at a university. “I joined the movement because the country needed it,” Nusrat Jahan tells Eos.
HAS THE MOVEMENT DELIVERED?
Like Tabassum, Jahan also believes the changes she had hoped for have yet to materialise. “Over the past two years, only the people in power have changed,” she contends. “The system is still operating within the same old structure.”
Jahan says she no longer has any expectations of the state. She now plans to pursue higher education abroad.
But those who now hold the reins of power, propelled in part by the students’ uprising, don’t agree with the students’ assessment. This includes the leadership of the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, the BNP’s senior joint secretary and a political adviser to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, dismisses concerns like those articulated by Tabassum as “childish”.
Rizvi cites the hardships faced by the BNP leadership during Hasina’s rule, including “enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and political persecution of its leaders and activists”,arguing that this history is one of the reasons why the party remains committed to accountable, democratic governance.
A REVOLUTION STILL UNFINISHED
Political analyst Akbar Hossain believes that the July 2024 uprising reshaped how many Bangladeshis view the relationship between citizens and the state.
“The uprising showed that governments ultimately derive their legitimacy from public consent,” he tells Eos. “But two years on, many of the institutional reforms people expected remain unfinished.”
Mubin, Sabnati, Tabassum and Jahan have different stories. But they belong to the same generation, one whose lives were permanently changed by the July 2024 movement.
Mubin once dreamed of owning a shop of his own. Today, he is learning to navigate a new reality at a rehabilitation centre in Dhaka.
Looking back at the movement, he says many of the hopes that brought people to the streets remain unfulfilled. “The aspirations of the movement have not been realised. The government is moving away from important reforms,” he says.
For him, life has become a daily struggle to adapt and move forward. “I have to find a way to earn a living,” he says. “No one else is going to provide for me.”
It is a burden Sabnati, Tabassum and Jahan carry too, each in their own way — the shared inheritance of a generation that came of age on the streets in July 2024.
The writer is a Bangladeshi investigative
journalist whose work has
appeared in various international
publications. He can be contacted at
marufhasan57983@gmail.com.
X: @the_MarufHasan
Published in Dawn, EOS, August 9th, 2026