Jihad's Death in Well: Five railway men indicted

A Dhaka court yesterday framed charges against six people including five engineers of Bangladesh Railway for the death of four-year-old boy Jihad, who died after falling into a deep well in Dhaka's Shahjahanpur area in 2014.

The accused are M/S SR Housing's owner Md Shafiqul Islam alias Abdus Salam, Bangladesh Railway's Senior Sub-Assistant Engineer (tube-well inspection) Md Jahangir Alam, Kamalapur Railway Station's Assistant Engineer Md Nasir Uddin, Electric Engineer Abu Ahmed Shaki, Assistant Engineer Deepak Kumar Bhoumik and Assistant Engineer-2 Md Saiful Islam.

Judge Md Akhtaruzzaman of the Special Judge's Court-5 passed the order after reading out the charges before the accused, who are now on bail. They however pleaded not guilty and demanded justice.

The court fixed October 18 for starting trial of the case.

On December 26, 2014, Jihad died after falling through a 17-inch-diameter abandoned shaft near his house at Bangladesh Railway Colony in Shahjahanpur while playing with friends. His body was pulled out by a band of indomitable volunteers the next day, around 15 minutes after the fire service had called off a nearly 23-hour search.

On April 17, 2015, Shahjahanpur police Sub-inspector Abu Zafar pressed charges against Jahangir and Salam over the death. But on June 4 last year, the victim's father filed a no-confidence (Naraji) petition against the investigation into the incident.

The court later ordered for further investigation. As per the order, detectives on May 31 again pressed charges, this time against the six.