Four individuals, including the Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Safiqur Rahman, and his wife, have been sent to jail for torturing a child domestic worker.
On Monday, Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mohammad Raju Ahmed ordered them to be sent to jail after concluding the hearing. The investigating officer of the case, SI Romer Mia of Uttara West Police Station, produced them in court and applied for their detention in jail.
Apart from Safiqur Rahman, the other accused sent to jail are his wife Bithi and two house-helpers of the residence, Rupali Khatun and Sufia Begum. Advocate Zakir Hossain represented the accused, attended the hearing and argued for bail.
He told the court, “Safiqur Rahman is a government official. He does not stay at home, he stays for government work. He is in no way involved with these incidents and does not even know what happened.”
On behalf of the state, Prosecution Police SI Tahmina Akter opposed the bail, saying, “Due to poverty, the family sent the 11-year-old child to work. Since entering that house, she has been constantly tormented by abuse. They have done horrific things to her.”
According to case sources, the child’s father, Golam Mostafa, filed the case this past Sunday regarding the incident of torturing the child. The case states that Safiqur Rahman’s residence is in Sector 9, Uttara. The security guard of that residence, Jahangir, was looking for a young girl to take care of a baby.
Later, he met with Golam Mostafa. Having received a promise to bear all expenses, including the daughter’s wedding, Mostafa sent his daughter to work at that residence in June last year. He last visited and saw his daughter at that residence on 2 November last year.
After that, it is alleged in the case that the girl was not allowed to ‘meet’ with her family anymore. It states that on 31 January, Bithi called Mostafa and informed him that his daughter was ill and that he should come and take her.
Around 7pm, Bithi handed over the girl to Mostafa. Seeing serious injuries on various parts of his daughter’s body, he admitted his daughter to Gazipur Shaheed Tajuddin Ahmed Medical College Hospital.
His daughter told him that she was tortured at that residence at various times. Besides beating her, she was also “branded with a heated cooking spatula on her body.”
