UP members brutalise 2 children
Police yesterday arrested two Union Parishad members for tying two boys to a tree and brutalising them in Rajshahi the day before.
Abdul Motaleb and Abdul Latif Mirza, members of Jhaluka Union Parishad in Durgapur upazila, allegedly slapped, kicked and clobbered the boys with sticks at Andua village on Wednesday.
The class X students were accused of stealing a goat, said Ruhul Alam, officer-in-charge of Durgapur Police Station.
The OC said they were traumatised and admitted to the local health complex.
Earlier in the morning, one of the boys' father sued nine persons including the UP chairman Mozahar Ali Molla for the torture.
He also alleged that the boy's families were forced to pay Tk 16,000 as fine during a village arbitration Wednesday.
The UP chairman went into hiding, said police.
At the hospital, one boy said they were tortured in presence of the UP chairman and two UP members.
He admitted that he took the other boy to steal the goat for paying Tk 2,500 to some village bullies who took his mobile phone and demanded money to return it. He did not tell anyone of the incident fearing his parents' rebuke, he said.
Shipra Nath, a doctor, said the boys were not in danger, but they needed time to recover from the trauma.
Before being arrested, UP member Motaleb denied the allegations of torture and said the boys were tied to a tree as they were not confessing to the stealing. “We punished the thieves in the village arbitration. What's wrong in this?” he asked this correspondent.
UP Chairman Mozahar Ali Mollah said the arbitration was held following directives of the local police. He said he called up the OC and he asked him to settle the matter through arbitration.
The OC denied giving any direction.
The UP chairman said the goat of villager Rezaul Karim was stolen early Wednesday. Later locals held the two with the goat at Horian Bazar and handed them over to the villagers. “The villagers beat them out of anger.”
He said the arbitration fined the boys' families Tk 20,000 but he cut the penalty to Tk 16,000. Of the money, Tk 2,500 was given to the goat owner and the rest was donated to two local mosques, he said.
CHILD ABUSE IN RAJSHAHI
At least 29 incidents of repression of women and children were recorded in Rajshahi district in February, 23 of them involving children, according to the Ladies Organisation for Social Welfare, an NGO.
Shahnaj Parveen, executive director of the organisation, said they recorded 499 such incidents in the district in 2016 and 508 in 2015.
Dil Sitara Begum Chuni, president of Rajshahi divisional chapter of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers' Association, said child abuse was occurring due to a lack of public awareness and impunity to the abusers.
“People brutalise children of poor families,” she said. “The law enforcers often show apathy in quickly responding to the incidents.”
On February 14, locals tortured Ariful Islam, 12, in Puthia, accusing him of stealing a phone SIM card. Police later arrested two persons in this regard.
A week later, on February 21, the hair of transport worker Nazmul Haque, 12, was cut and his face was smeared with motor oil by his colleagues for damaging the CD player of a bus in the same upazila. Two abusers were later arrested.
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