Suddenly, I noticed a young woman calling me from the footpath. I looked at her and found that our colleague Monsura Hossain is sitting on the footpath with fresh blood gushing out of her nose.

Monsura is a reporter of our sister concern, the Prothom Alo. I rushed to her.

She told me that a few minutes back she suffered a dangerous road accident at the spot. She was going to the press club to cover a condolence meeting. But while her CNG run auto-rickshaw stopped at the nearby crossing, a pick-up van hit it from the back.

The auto-rickshaw was bumped onto the foot path and was damaged severely hitting a tree on the footpath. A group of policemen, who were there, seized the auto-rickshaw and the attacking pick-up van. But they did not take any initiative to send the injured to the hospital.

The area was calm and quite and hardly any empty taxicab or auto-rickshaw was passing by. At first I was puzzled. I could not think of what to do. My important assignment was just a few minutes away.

Then I realised that first of all I should take her to a hospital for treatment, and decided to take her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH ) as I thought that a private hospital might not admit an accident injured fearing police case or any other kind of harassment.

I asked the policemen to hail a taxi cab or auto-rickshaw for us. But none of the transport sector 'service providers' was ready to let an injured person get on board. An auto-rickshaw was finally stopped and the driver was forced by the police to give us a ride. But little did we know how much more hassle was awaiting us.

As we were heading towards DMCH we found the roads closed. All the roads leading to the hospital were cordoned off by the police.

The law enforcers were rerouting every vehicle saying that there were processions on the roads, particularly in the university area. They would not even let an emergency patient pass by. I had to argue with police officers to get permissions to go through showing my journalist's identity card at several points.

But the police cordon in front of the Shaheed Minar turned out to be more difficult to work. They did not allow us even after I brandished my journalist's identity. So we took another detour towards the rear side of DMCH and managed to enter the hospital from Chan Khar Pool area.

The emergency ward of DMCH was as usual. Rush of severely injured patients amid leisurely strolling indifferent nurses and doctors. After we bought an emergency ticket, the duty doctor sent us to ward number 32.

The doctors there suggested X-rays of the injuries. But the emergency X-ray room was locked. By that time a reporter of the Prothom Alo, who covers crime related incidents, reached the hospital.

He looked for the X-ray machine operator. Monsura, meanwhile, was groaning in pain and was trying to call her husband on her mobile phone. We had to wait at least 15 minutes for the emergency X-ray man to oblige us with his kind presence.

In the meantime, Monsura's husband was facing the police cordons that we finagled our way through just a little while ago. He had to walk from Shahbagh crossing to DMCH. The doctors suggested few medicines and complete bed rest for at least a week for poor Monsura. We came out of DMCH at 6.30pm and I did not know what happened to my important assignment.