Child reportedly beaten, forced to walk naked, cauterised over alleged phone theft
Trigger warning: This article includes descriptions of torture. Reader discretion is advised.
Police today (25 June) arrested a youth over allegedly torturing a 11-year-old child after accusing him of stealing a mobile phone in Munshiganj's Srinagar.
Yasin Arafat, 24, was arrested after the child's father filed a case with Sreenagar Police Station, Abdullah Al Tayabir, officer-in-charge (OC) of the police station told the Business Standard.
"The manner in which the child was tortured was inhumane. The police took up the case under the Women and Child Abuse Act and arrested the main accused. Efforts are on to arrest the remaining accused," the OC said.
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According to the case document, on the morning of 24 June, Yasin Arafat and his men accused Nahid, son of carpenter Sagar Hawladar, of stealing a mobile phone and later took him to his house.
Meanwhile, family sources and locals said Arafat and his cohorts brutally beat the child with tree branches and bamboo sticks. Later they stripped him naked and took him to different places to recover the mobile phone. They also heated a key and used it to burn different parts of his body.
Despite repeated appeals by Nahid's parents to let go of their son, Yasin and his men did not listen. They detained Nahid all day and tortured him.
Later, around 9pm, locals rescued Nahid from Subjahati road. Nahid was rushed to the Sreenagar Upazila Health Complex where the doctor referred him to Salimullah Medical College Hospital in Dhaka.
Sreenagar Upzilla Social Services Officer Mahfuza Parveen Chowdhury said the child is now behaving abnormally due to such "medieval" torture.
"When someone comes near him, he starts shouting 'don't beat me, don't beat me'. Sreenagar Upazila Social Service Office has taken responsibility for the treatment of the boy," she said.
