The 20-year-old girl and her mother Nurjahan Begum, who too was badly hurt in the blast, are under treatment at Ward 33 of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Doctors said Marzina's wounds will take quite some time to heal completely.

On that fateful morning, Nurjahan, Marzina and one of her uncles came from their Khalkur village to Gazipur to appear before a court for the hearing of a dowry case Marzina had filed against her husband Joynal, 24, a garment worker.

Marzina married Joynal, then a jobless youth, two years and two months ago. But the marriage turned into a nightmare for her since the very beginning, as Joynal has been torturing her brutally almost every day in demand of dowry.

Marzina is the eldest of five sisters and a brother. It was really hard for her day-labourer father to spend around Tk 20,000 for the marriage ceremony. He also paid another Tk 20,000 to his son-in-law on different occasions.

Only three days into the marriage, he told the newlywed teen

age bride to leave, as he did not love or want her. He said he loved a schoolgirl but married Marzina on his mother's insistence expecting some fast money as dowry with which to start a small business.

As Marzina refused to buzz off, Joynal started to beat her now and then. However, after three months, Joynal and his mother agreed to keep her only if her father paid them Tk 50,000 and a two-room house built by his in-laws.

As Marzina's father said he had no way to meet that demand, the physical and psychological torture on her worsened.

“Since the very beginning Joynal started to beat her mercilessly and asked for money on various pretexts. We were forced to pay him Tk 20,000 in the first year of the marriage, begging from our relatives and neighbours. But his demand for money never ceased,” Nurjahan told The daily Star.

On several occasions, the marriage was on the verge of collapse. But each time interventions of the local union parishad chairman, members and other influential people saved it.

In the face of increasing violence, Marzina at last left her husband's house last year and filed the dowry case two months ago. Tuesday was the date for hearing of the case. But the terror strike has put the marriage of this hapless girl only in further jeopardy.

Her father reported that Joynal expressed delight at the news of his wife's predicament. "I will see how the chairman and members now persuade me to continue living with her. There is no way I will agree to keep a cripple as my wife," her father quoted the savage husband as saying.

A bleak future looming ahead has outweighed the girl's physical sufferings.