Driven by the dream of transforming his family’s fortunes, Md Yusuf Raju, 44, migrated to the United States in October 2023, carrying a heavy burden of debt. Tragically, that hard-earned dream was brutally cut short on Saturday night when he was shot dead by a gunman at his workplace in Brooklyn, New York.
The fatal incident occurred on Saturday at a shop named “American Best Wings & Pizza” in Rainsville area of Brooklyn, a Bangladeshi-populated neighbourhood.
Raju, who hailed from Kongshonagar village in Amishapara Union of Sonaimuri Upazila, Noakhali, lost his life, while his Bangladeshi colleague, Rasel, was shot and injured in the attack.
Raju’s sudden demise has plunged his home village into deep mourning, with his family shattered by the news. The second of six children born to farmer Mohammad Ullah, Raju had borrowed capital from multiple sources to fund his journey to the US.
He had applied for political asylum and held legal work permits, planning to regularise his documentation, visit his family in Bangladesh, and eventually bring his wife and children over to join him.
Instead, his wife, Poli Akter, is now left to face a bleak and uncertain future with their two daughters, aged 12 and two and a half. Heartbreakingly, their youngest daughter, Raisa, was born after Raju had migrated; he never had the chance to hold his newborn child.
“My husband took out many loans to go abroad, which have not yet been properly repaid,” devastated Poli Akter said, bewildered by the prospect of raising her children and clearing the outstanding debt without her husband.
“How will I repay these loans with these children? How will I tell them that their father is dead?” she added.
The profound grief of the community is shared by Mohammad Hossain, the father of Sobuj, who was also sent abroad in 2023 through the sale of family land and heavy borrowing.
Hossain recounted that his son had secured work for about a year and had recently called to say he was doing well and hoped to build a house once his debts were cleared. “Now I hear he has been shot dead,” Hossain lamented.
As the village of Kongshonagar remains shell-shocked, Raju’s relatives and local residents have appealed to the government to assist in swiftly repatriating his body to Bangladesh and to stand by the destitute family during this crisis.
