School stays closed this week as crash still haunts Milestone students

Five days have passed since the sky fell over Uttara.

But at Milestone School and College, time has not moved forward. The classrooms are silent. The playground is empty. The bells remain mute.

And in the hearts of the children who survived, the crash has not ended.

On Saturday, July 26, a curious crowd gathered outside the school gates – strangers peering through gaps, trying to glimpse the wreckage, the blood-stained walls, the place where 31 lives were erased in seconds. But today, it’s not the curious who walk through the gate. It’s the broken.

Students returning – not for class, but for closure.  

Holding tightly to their parents’ hands, they step onto the campus once more, their school ID cards dangling like fragile talismans. Some walk in silence. Others tremble. A few burst into tears before they even cross the threshold.

The school has announced: Classes and exams will remain suspended this week. There is no date yet for when normalcy might return. How can it? There is no normal after this.

Captain (Retd) Jahangir Alam Khan, Principal of the English section of the school, stood near the ruins of Haider Ali Bhaban and spoke softly:  “The students are still traumatised. The investigation is ongoing. And healing? That will take much longer.”  

Three counsellors are now on campus every day. Parents bring their children not to study, but to talk, to cry, to try somehow to unsee what they saw.

At 11:00am, Junaid Siddiqui, a Class VII student, walked in alone, though his mother waited just outside, eyes red, hands clasped in prayer.

For 30 minutes, he wandered the grounds. When he emerged at 11:30, his voice was hollow.

“There was a sound,” he began. “A noise so loud… it felt like my eardrums would burst. Everyone was screaming. Running. I froze. Then I saw it – the plane, the fire, the smoke.”

He paused. His hands shook.

“I went to the building where it crashed,” he whispered. “There were… arms. Legs. Scattered. Burned students. I saw my friends… not moving. I can’t describe it. It’s not something you can put into words.”

He looked down.  

“Now, when I close my eyes at night… that scene comes back. Over and over. How can I think about exams? How can I sit in a classroom and listen to a teacher talk about math or science when all I see is fire?”

He is not alone.

Across the campus, children walk with parents, teachers, counsellors, some touch the walls of their old classrooms. Others kneel near the playground, where they last saw their friends alive.

The school says classes may resume next week. But no one believes it will be that simple.