Dhaka boy who police said was ‘kidnapped and murdered’ says he fled home

The trial of four people for the abduction and murder of a boy five years ago in Dhaka’s Hazaribagh was in the final stage, but the case has taken the sharpest possible twist - he has returned. Alive.

Abu Sayeed, now 15, appeared in a court on Thursday and said no-one had kidnapped or killed him but he had fled home of his own free will because he did not like studying.

Judge Begum Shamsunnahar of Dhaka’s Fifth Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal ordered police report verifying his identity within Sept 22.

Sayeed’s parents Mohammad Azam and Mahinur Begum are behind bars now on charges of fraud over the case they started alleging kidnappers had demanded ransom for Sayeed’s release.

Azam filed a general diary or GD with Hazaribagh Police Station on Apr 17, 2014 saying his son had gone missing. Later, he started a case against unidentified people.

The Detective Branch of Dhaka Metropolitan Police had arrested seven people, and formally charged four of them with kidnapping and killing Sayeed.

Police had grilled the accused, Sonia Akter from Barishal’s Hijla, her brother ‘Afzal’, cousin ‘Saiful’, and relative Shaheen Raji, in custody.

Afzal and Saiful had given confessional statements in court, following which DB said the boy was drowned in the river Meghna from a Barishal-bound launch.

DB Sub-Inspector Ruhul Amin was the investigator.

Following a lengthy trial, the tribunal had set Sept 5 to start hearing arguments after completion of deposition by witnesses.

But on Aug 29, it was revealed that Sayeed is alive.

Sonia now accuses her former husband Miraz Hossain of framing her and her relatives in collusion with Sayeed’s father Azam.

“The others and I have been in jail for around three years. We were tortured in the DB offices. We had been forced to give confessional statements as per their (police’s) wish,” she said.  

In a case that she has initiated against Sayeed’s parents and two other people, Sonia said she had come to know that the boy was alive when she had been out on bail in 2015.

She then tried to negotiate with Azam and gave him Tk 550,000 to have the case withdrawn, Sonia alleged.

She had asked Azam to bring Sayeed to a house in Dhaka’s Pallabi on Aug 29, promising to pay him Tk 200,000 more, according to the case.

Police arrested Azam, Mahinur, and Azam’s brother-in-law Abdul Jabbar with Sayeed in the house.

Azam on Thursday admitted in the court that the boy present there was indeed his son Sayeed.

Md Wahiduzzaman, the lawyer for Sonia, accused SI Ruhul of torturing his client and others accused in the case over the “abduction and murder” of the boy for their confessional statement.

“He (Ruhul) was the mastermind. We want exemplary punishment of Ruhul Amin and others behind him,” he said.