A devastating road accident in the heart of Sylhet city has claimed the life of a two-year-old boy after the motorcycle carrying his family collided head-on with an auto-rickshaw.

The incident occurred on Tuesday morning in the busy Zindabazar area. Rakibul Islam was travelling towards Bandarbazar on a motorcycle alongside his wife, their young son, Abdullah, and his nephew. According to police officers and eyewitnesses, the vehicle was struck by a CNG-run auto-rickshaw travelling dangerously on the wrong side of the road.

The force of the impact threw two-year-old Abdullah from the front of the motorcycle on to the tarmac, inflicting severe injuries. Local residents rushed to the scene and transported all four family members to the Emergency Department of Sylhet MAG Osmani Medical College Hospital. Tragically, attending doctors pronounced the young boy dead upon arrival. The remaining three passengers received immediate medical attention for their injuries and have since been discharged.

The loss has struck a particularly poignant chord with relatives and neighbours in the Khasdobir area of Sylhet, where the family resides. Ashiqur Rahman Khan, a colleague of the grieving father, shared that Rakibul married in 2019, and the couple had waited nearly six years before welcoming their son into the world.

Kotwali Police Station Officer-in-Charge Khan Muhammad Mainul Zakir confirmed the casualty, noting that officers impounded the auto-rickshaw shortly after the collision. The driver fled the scene immediately following the crash, and law enforcement agencies have launched a search to trace and apprehend the suspect.

This fatal incident underscores ongoing concerns regarding traffic management and reckless driving across urban transport corridors in Bangladesh, where non-compliant vehicles routinely breach road regulations by travelling against the flow of traffic.