Dr Sheikh Sadiul Islam says he went voluntarily to Dhaka’s Pangu Hospital on the night of July 19, 2024, during a curfew, without an official instruction or phone call. Though formally the resident surgeon, he wrote that he lacked administrative authority and travelled because he felt a professional and moral duty to help injured people. Wearing his hospital identification card, he first walked to his private chamber’s hospital and later reached Pangu Hospital in a vehicle carrying several other doctors.

On arrival, he said there were files for at least 70 to 80 patients outside the emergency department and another 40 to 50 patients in operating theatres. Most had been injured in the movement, including gunshot wounds, crushed bones and uncontrolled bleeding. With limited staff and a large number of patients, doctors operated through the night and provided emergency treatment, including bleeding control, wound cleaning and temporary stabilization where immediate bullet removal was not undertaken.

He left around 7 a.m. and waited about an hour for transport before taking a CNG vehicle to Bailey Road for 800 taka. Checkpoints and barricades turned an approximately seven-kilometre journey into a 14-kilometre route. He said he received no special facility or hospital ambulance and went solely out of conscience.