What took him a decade of hard work and perseverance to accomplish was burnt to ashes in a matter of minutes.
Hours before the execution of war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah on December 12, a group of Jamaat-Shibir men burnt down Abu Sayeed's shop, the only source of his income.
Yet, almost a week later, he was too scared to speak out against the perpetrators who had torched his spare parts store along with about 70 more at Kacharibazar in Laxmichap of Nilphamari.
Standing on the ruins of his store on Wednesday, Abu Sayeed recalled what he saw that night.
“Tension gripped the whole marketplace after the evening prayers. People were saying that the situation might turn bad. So, we all shut our shops and went home. I came back around 8:30pm to check if everything was all right and saw fire everywhere. I tried to douse the flame in my store but one of my relatives pinned me back,” said a virtually shaken Sayeed.
It was not just Sayeed. Everyone in the area seemed to have been gagged by fear as another terrifying incident shook the very nerves of the people. The atrocity was something none of them were even remotely familiar with.
Two days after the arson incidents at Kacharibazar and Beltali, eminent cultural personality and local Lawmaker Asaduzzaman Noor's motorcade came under attack at Tupamari village near Ramganj when he was returning to the district headquarters after visiting the arson-affected site.
Noor was unhurt but five people, including two from the same family, were killed and at least 50 injured, as hundreds of Jamaat-Shibir men armed with sharp weapons pounced on the motorcade.
In what seemed to be a clear-cut ambush in militant style, they had dug the road leading to the district town at a point with bamboo groves on both sides, intercepted the motorcade, split it into two parts to strategically weaken Noor's people and then begun the mayhem.
So ferocious was the assault that Kamruzzaman Huda, a resident of Tupamari village, was still reeling from it.
“After seeing such brutality, I cannot eat properly. I feel sick. I just cannot adjust my mind to the fact that human beings are capable of such brutality,” said the 35-year old who escaped the mayhem with minor injuries to his knees.
He said rumours were spread that Noor's people had set a Jamaat leader's house on fire and killed some villagers, in order to incite the villagers to attack the motorcade.
The stretch of the Ramganj-Mirganj road where the attack took place still bears visible burn marks, with uprooted trees lying haphazardly.
The typically crowded Ramganj bazaar where the road leads to was almost bereft of people even in broad daylight when this reporter went there on Wednesday.
“You will not find anyone on the road after sunset. People, especially activists of Awami League, are scared of sudden attacks,” said Belal Haq Shah, uncle of the two brothers killed in the attack on Noor's motorcade.
However, it is among the Hindu community that tension runs at its palpable worst.
Anyada Prashad Roy whose tea stall at Beltali bazaar was vandalised on December 12, did not even come to clear the wreckage until Wednesday morning, five days after the arson.
“All our materials including tea cups were destroyed. We are scared. But this [shop] is the only source of our livelihood -- we cannot just leave it in this state,” Anyada said while scrambling through the wreckage.
Tapan Kumar Roy, whose house at Laxmichap fell prey to Jamaat men's destruction spree that night, said the Hindus had become the target of attacks regardless of issues.
“It appears that we, the Hindus, cannot live in this country anymore,” he said, standing next to the burnt stacks of recently harvested paddy in his front yard.
“You only see the burnt paddy but don't you see burns inside us?” he asked frantically.
His neighbour Dhirendranath Roy said the feeling of insecurity among the Hindus had multiplied after the attacks.
“We are afraid of filing cases in connection with Thursday's attack, as the attackers have threatened of revenge if we do so,” said a villager, declining to share his name for fear of reprisal.