Tortured domestic worker still in pain at MMCH

Tortured allegedly by her employers, domestic worker Begum Akter has been groaning in pain for a week at Mymensingh Medical College Hospital.

While talking to The Daily Star, the 22-year-old described how she was brutalised.

“She [Shilpi] tied my hands, punched me and kicked me wherever she felt like it. She continued beating as long as she could,” said Begum.

“Once she burnt the sole of my foot with a hot iron,” she wept. It was so unbearable that she started screaming, Begum said.

The doors and windows of the room were kept shut so that nobody can hear the screams. Even after repeated appeals, “She did not spare me,” she alleged.

There are burn injuries on Begum's body, inflicted by hot iron.

One day she poured boiling water on her back while she was taking a bath on an excuse that she took much time to do so, alleged Begum.

“They never allowed me to go outside for treatment,” she said.

“She also cut my hair off,” said Begum, adding, “I repeatedly appealed to the couple to send me back home, but to no avail.”

Facing such torture on a regular basis, Begum had been working at the residence of Shilpi Akter and Abul Kalam in Maniknagar area of Dhaka for three months.

As the infection from her wounds spread, the couple left her on a Mymensingh-bound bus on August 18.

Victim's brother-in-law Abul Hashem took her home in Mymensingh after the bus driver called him.

Victim's brother Swapon Mia filed a case with Ishwarganj Police Station accusing six people including the couple, said Sub-Inspector Shawon Chakraborty of Ishwarganj Police Station.

The SI, also investigation of the case, said they will conduct a drive to arrest them once the victim recovers.

Doctors at Mymensingh Medical College Hospital said it will take time for Begum to be cured completely. Still, she cannot walk and hardly sit.

Begum is from Raulerchar village in Ishwarganj upazila of the district. She lost her father Shamsuddin while she was only two, said her mother Rumela Begum.

In 2016, she was married off to a youth of the same upazila. But, some eight months ago, her husband divorced her, she said.

“I never imagined that my child would be tortured this way. I used to provide meagre food to my six-member family by working as a domestic help,” said a sobbing Rumela.