Teen beaten, his auto-rickshaw snatched

A group of unidentified criminals beat up a teenage driver of a battery-run auto-rickshaw and snatched his vehicle in Satkhira’s Patkelghata upazila on Friday afternoon.

The victim Shaheen, 14, was sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital with critical injuries yesterday after he received treatment in Satkhira and Khulna.

He reached DMCH with his mother and uncle around 10:00pm.

Shaheen went out to earn bread for his family on the fateful day. A group of four to five men hired his auto-rickshaw from Jashore’s Keshobpur upazila and headed towards nearby Satkhira’s Patkelghata upazila, said the victim’s father who was seriously sick and was unable of getting out of his home.

On the way, the criminals asked Shaheen to stop beside a jute filed. They beat him up until he lost consciousness and left him in the jute field. Later, when Shaheen regained sense, he started crying, the father narrated quoting the victim.

Hearing him cry, locals rushed him to a local hospital, he added.

A photograph of the boy smeared with blood went viral on social media.

Rezaul Hossain, officer-in-charge of Patkelghata Police Station, said Shaheen’s father Haider filed a case against some unknown persons.

Police were trying to arrest the criminals, he added.

Haider bought the auto-rickshaw with the money he got as loan from the local NGO.