A 75-year-old man whose death triggered violence at NRS Medical College and Hospital on Monday was remembered as “a peace-loving person” in the Tangra neighbourhood where he lived with his family.

Mohammad Sayeed seldom fell ill till he lost his balance and fell down the stairs of a nearby mosque on Sunday evening, recalled a relative.

“My father did not have any complications. He had fasted during the holy month of Ramazan so he was a little weak,” his elder daughter who was at the hospital when he breathed his last said.

“The day we took him to the hospital, I could never imagine he would never come back,” she said.

Sayeed lived in a house in Bibi Bagan Lane in Tangra surrounded by his sons’ and daughters’ families.

Once, Sayeed ran a stationery shop. It is now being taken care of by one of his two sons.

Men and women from the neighbourhood crowded in the congested lane on Tuesday. Some women huddled inside the house mourning.

“My mother fell sick often. She was taken to NRS hospital. She, too, died there in 2012,” Sayeed’s another daughter said.

“I was so scared when my brother shifted our father to the same hospital. My worst apprehensions came true when I heard the news.”

Hundreds of neighbours gathered round the small house where Sayeed lived with his family when his body was brought back home on Tuesday after a post-mortem. After the rituals, he was buried.

His son-in-law Mohammad Mansur Alam said he was present at the hospital when Sayeed started feeling unwell on Monday evening.

“We were running around looking for a doctor who could help us. We saw so many doctors in a room; they were chatting and joking among themselves,” Alam, who lives on Dr Suresh Sarkar Road, said.

“Many of them were smoking. But none came forward to help us. They said my father-in-law was not their patient,” he said.

He stopped breathing after a doctor gave him an injection. “There was no movement. We knew he was gone,” he said.