Faraaz Hossain and Abinta Kabir were almost like brother and sister.
Childhood friends in their native Bangladesh, the two were later classmates at Emory University’s Oxford College, where they made excellent grades and served on the student activities committee. Since both were traveling this summer to their native country, they planned to meet up with another friend at a popular restaurant.
That night, Faraaz and Abinta would die together, along with another college student. All three were victims of Friday’s terrorist attack in Dhaka that left 20 hostages dead.
“If for some reason Abinta went a minute late in that restaurant, she would have been alive today,” her cousin, Hazira Afiya, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a Facebook conversation.
Abinta had been with her family before leaving around 9 p.m. Friday to go to Holey Artisan Bakery, where she met Faraaz and Tarushi Jain, a University of California-Berkeley student. Ten minutes after leaving home, Abinta called her family screaming about gunfire and grenades, her cousin said.
“My uncles, aunts and grandparents rushed to the scene,” Afiya said.
Afiya, just three months older than Abinta, hadn’t yet seen her cousin, who’d arrived days earlier with her mother from Miami, where they now lived. Afiya prayed her cousin had escaped unharmed.
Inside, terrorists had offered Faraaz the chance to leave, according to reports. But he refused, choosing instead to stay with Abinta and Tarushi.
“The terrorist asked Tarushi about her citizenship,” Afiya said. “She admitted she was an Indian citizen and they killed her on spot.”
Next, Abinta was questioned about her citizenship, her cousin said.
“Abinta got shaken up and admitted she was American and they hit the back of her head with a blunt instrument,” Afiya said.
For hours, family members would check local hospitals, praying that those inside had survived. But at 2 p.m. Saturday, Abinta’s family was told a young girl whose clothes and shoes matched what Abinta had been wearing had been killed. That night, family members identified her body, her cousin posted on Facebook.
“Her body contained wounds and bruises. She was gone,” the post said.
Faraaz had also been killed. Back in Georgia, word spread quickly through social media, a classmate said Sunday.
“The hardest thing for me is knowing how scared they must’ve been,” Kereisha Harrell said. “They were two of the best people I’ve ever known, and they didn’t deserve to die that way. No one there did.”
Faraaz and Abinta were both well-liked and involved on campus, helping plan events such as the Fall Formal, held at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, Harrell said. Faraaz had graduated from Oxford and was enrolled in the Emory University business school. Abinta, a sophomore, hoped to do the same thing after finishing her sophomore year at Oxford.
But until school started again, both students were excited for their trips to see family. An only child, Abinta was especially close to her mother, Ruba Ahmed, and excited to travel to Bangladesh, Afiya said.
“When ever we met up, I used to see Abinta holding her mother’s hands or hugging her,” Afiya said. “They could not stand without holding each other.”
Before leaving the U.S. for Bangladesh, the two had even gotten matching tattoos on their left wrists that said “Maa,” meaning mother in Bengali.
“I stayed at my aunt’s last night and all she said was, ‘How can I get my baby girl back? Who can get her back for me?,’” Afiya said.
“How can I live in this world without her?” Abinta’s mom repeated. “Every corner of this house reminds me of my little girl.”
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