From classroom to grave: Together in life, united in death

They were not just cousins and uncles. Not just schoolmates. They were brothers in spirit, bound not by blood alone, but by laughter, by shared tiffin boxes, by the same dusty courtyard where they played every evening after school.

On Monday, July 21, they walked into Milestone School and College in Uttara like any other day –backpacks on shoulders, ID cards dangling, dreams still small and bright.  

By 8:30pm of that fateful day, one of them was gone.  

Twelve hours later, all three were buried, side by side, in the quiet courtyard of their ancestral home in Tarartek Masjidpara in Diyabari locality.

Md Ashiqur Rahman Umair, 10, was declared dead at Gulshan’s United Hospital.  Mahid Hasan Aryan, 11, missing and unaccounted for, was confirmed dead in the early hours of Tuesday.  

And Bappi Sarkar, 10, fighting for breath with burns covering his small body, took his last breath on Tuesday morning.

Three boys. Three lives. One tragedy.  Three families shattered in just 12 hours.

They were buried together after Zuhr prayers on Tuesday, July 22. No fanfare. No farewells. Just the soft echo of Shahadah over three fresh mounds of earth, lined with white stones, under a sky that refused to cry.

Their biggest identity was not in their names, or their school or classes, or even their family trees. It was this: They were friends.

They grew up in the same courtyard, studied in classes III and IV fourth at Milestone School, walked to school together every morning, returned together, and even went to the same coaching class. 

They were supposed to be picked up after school. One family member was scheduled to come at 1:30pm.  But at 1:30pm, the sky fell.

When the fighter jet crashed into Haider Ali Bhaban, it did not just destroy a building. It erased a future.

“I was at home,” said Md Russell, cousin to two of the three, his voice trembling as he stood near the graves. “Suddenly, I heard a loud explosion. I ran outside and rushed to the school where I saw Umair and Bappi lying in the field beside the school. Soldiers were carrying them away.”

They were first taken to Lubana General Hospital. Then shifted to United Hospital. Umair died first. Bappi was transferred to the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery. 

Aryan’s body was brought home – but not for burial. His aunt, living in China, was expected to return. The family waited. They kept the body.

At 3:40am, the phone rang.  It was another cousin. “Aryan is gone,” he said.  

Before they could process it, another call came. “Bappi is no more.”

Three graves. One courtyard. Three families now sharing a single grief.

Russell described their bond:  “They played together. Their funerals were held together. They were buried together.”  

A pause. Then, barely a whisper:  “They were never apart in life. Even in death, they stayed together.”

The family tree reads like a map of loss:  Umair, son of Qutub, in Class IV; Aryan, son of Selim (Qutub’s uncle), also in Class IV; and Bappi, son of Shaheen (Qutub’s cousin), in Class III. Uncles and nephews. Cousins across generations. But to them, it was simpler:  They were friends.

Bappi’s father, Mohammad Abu Shahin, had been on his way to pick them up after Zuhr prayers. He heard the blast. He ran.  

“When I reached, the plane had crashed into the room next to my son’s classroom,” he said, eyes hollow. “I knew. But I kept searching. I found my son and nephew alive. But when I found Aryan… I knew he was gone.”

And Aryan – sweet, feverish Aryan – had not gone to school for a month. 

On the very first day he returned, the sky fell.

Monday afternoon. An Air Force jet crashes into a school.  29 dead so far with 69 injured. Numbers that will be repeated in reports, in headlines, in history books.

But in Tarartek Masjidpara, in a quiet courtyard just minutes from the ruins of Milestone School, three small graves tell a different story.

They don’t speak of policy failures, or flying zones, or military errors. 

They speak of Umair, who loved drawing; of Aryan, who missed school but never his friends; and of Bappi, who once said, “When I grow up, I want to be a teacher.”

They speak of a childhood stolen.  

Of a laughter silenced.  

Of a courtyard that will never again echo with the sound of three boys running home together.

They were buried side by side.  

Because even in death, they were never meant to be apart.