It was around 3:30pm on Thursday.

Sitting beside a sewer canal just outside his home, four-year-old Junaid Sabbir was trying to collect plastic bottles flowing with the currents, having absolutely no idea about what was coming.

His grandfather, who was having his lunch inside their tin-shed house at a slum in Shialbari area of the capital, saw it and warned him about the danger.

Junaid, however, did not listen to him.

Junaid when he was two.

When the grandfather, 50-year-old Bachchu Mia, came outside after having his meal, the boy was missing.

Sensing trouble, some of the family members dived into the canal immediately. They also mounted a frantic search in the area.

But Junaid was nowhere.

Around 11:00am yesterday, his uncle, Heera Manik, found his body floating in the canal about a kilometre away from their home, said the family members and fire service sources.

The open sewer canal that runs through the slum is several feet deep and about 5-15 feet wide.

This correspondent visited the slum behind Dhaka Commerce College and saw neighbours crowding into Junaid's house to console his mother.

“My son had asked for candies from me. I could not even give him some candies,” Jui Begum, the mother who works at a garment factory, said as she wept. 

Her husband Amir Hossain is a truck driver.

People gather near the spot. Photo: Star

Meanwhile, the victim's family alleged that the local fire service office was late to respond to their call.

The fire service, however, denied the allegation.

On being informed, several fire service units rushed to the spot and scoured the canal till 9:30pm Thursday, Anowar Hossain, deputy assistant director of the Fire Service and Civil Defence, told The Daily Star.

“We were also there when the uncle [Heera Manik] spotted the body,” he said.

Junaid was buried at a local graveyard yesterday afternoon.

Divers of fire service had recovered the body of six-year-old Sanjida on July 14, around 17 hours after she fell into a canal near Mohakhali bus terminal in the capital.