Hundreds of people took to the streets in a suburb of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka to protest the brutal killing of a 10-year-old boy.
CNN reports:
Hundreds of factory workers demonstrated in the nearby suburb of Narayanganj, demanding punishment for [the boy’s] killers. They carried placards and banners urging authorities to take effective measures to stop oppression of workers, especially children.
The killing was the latest in a recent string of gruesome, deadly attacks on children in Bangladesh.
CNN notes that police arrested a manager of a textile mill on Monday in connection to the savage crime. The brutal murder took place at a textile mill locate in Rupganj, outside the Bangladesh capital.
CNN adds:
Sagar Barman, a child laborer at the mill, died in a hospital Sunday after co-workers pumped air into his body by inserting a compressor hose into his rectum and turning on the machine, officials said. It was the second such killing in the country in the past year.
“It’s still under investigation. The boy was admitted with unusually bloated stomach and he had fatal injuries inside the stomach caused by air pressure,” revealed AKM Shafiuzzaman, an assistant professor of forensic medicine at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, during a press conference.
His comments came after he conducted a post-mortem examination Monday.
CNN learned from Ismail Hossain, an officer-in-charge of the Rupganj police, that “the boy may have been targeted because of co-workers’ personal enmity with his father.”
The officer added that “the boy’s father, Ratan Barman, who is also an employee at the mill, filed a case with Rupganj police naming four officials of the mill in his son’s death and accusing six others who were unnamed.”
“A unit manager of the mill, Nazmul Huda, has been arrested and he is being interrogated in custody while the other accused are on the run,” Hossain told CNN.
Nearly 30 child workers were rescued from the mill by police, he also said.
“The mill where the boy worked produces yarn for garment factories, and about 30 children, aged between 10 and 13, were found there when police raided it on Monday,” Police official Forkan Sikda told Reuters.
The news agency adds:
Children under the age of 14 are not allowed to work under Bangladeshi law but child labor is common in a country where almost a quarter of its 160 million people live the below poverty line of $2 a day.
Bangladesh relies on garments for about 80 percent of its exports and for about 4 million jobs, and is a major supplier of clothes to developed markets in the West.
Accidents and poor conditions in the textile and garment sector are a major concern for foreign buyers.
Bangladesh has been plagued recently by a spate of attacks against children.
CNN notes:
Last year, a 12-year-old boy was killed in the same way in a vehicle workshop in Khulna. Authorities said Rakib Hawlader died August 3 after being tortured by his former employer who was angry because Rakib took a job at another car repair shop…
In another notorious case last year, public protests broke out after the July 8 killing of Samiul Alam Rajon, 13, was recorded and posted on social media.
A video clip shows the boy tied to a post and beaten with a metal rod while his attackers laugh and jeer during the attack in Kumargaon, on the outskirts of Sylhet. The victim’s pleas for mercy, or just a glass of water, were ignored by his attackers.
The culprits of the vicious crimes were reportedly sentenced to death.
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