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Published : 27 Jan 2026, 05:21 PM
Police have been granted approval to question Pabitra Kumar Barua, an administrative officer allegedly involved in the abuse of a child at a school in Dhaka’s Paltan, in their custody for four days.
Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Sefatullah passed the order after a hearing on Tuesday.
A 4-year-old child was allegedly abused by a teacher just seven days after being admitted to “Sharmin Academy”.
After a video of the incident went viral, the child’s mother filed a case with Paltan Police on Thursday.
The case names the school’s admin officer Pabitra and his wife, teacher Sharmin Zaman, as suspects.
After the incident came to light, the school was shut down and the suspect went into hiding.
Police arrested Pabitra from a relative’s house in Mirpur on Friday. He was produced before the court seeking a seven-day remand order.
However, the hearing could not be held that day as the investigating officer Sub-Inspector Nur Islam was not present in court. Later, Tuesday was set for the hearing.
Pabitra was produced before the court on Tuesday, but the investigating officer could not appear due to illness.
On his behalf, Paltan Police Station Sub-Inspector Shamim Hasan appeared before the court and said: “The child started school on the 11th.
“Within seven days, on the 18th of January, this incident took place. The child was beaten. A stapler was pushed into the child’s mouth.”
At this point, the court asked the investigating officer where the female suspect was.
He told the court that she could not be traced and then sought approval to interrogate Pabitra, presenting details of the alleged abuse of the child.
The plaintiff's lawyer Saleh Uddin argued in favour of the remand petition, telling the court that he had circulated the video on social media himself.
State counsels assistant public prosecutors Muhammad Shamsuddoha Suman and Quayyum Hossain also sought approval of the remand, telling the court that the accused had previously behaved similarly with children in Chattogram.
After hearing arguments, the judge asked Pabitra why he had abused the student.
However, denying the allegation, the suspect told the court: “I did not beat the child, sir. But he was being mischievous.”
The judge asked, “You are the admin officer of the school, not a teacher; why do you discipline students?”
Pabitra replied, “The school has classes from nursery to fourth grade. Ask everyone what kind of person I am.”
Regarding the abuse allegation, he said: “The child was spitting on other students in the class. I told the child not to do that. Then the guardian was called.”
The judge then said: “You beat the child with a stapler.”
Denying it, Pabitra said: “I did not beat the child.”
The suspect remained silent when the judge asked about a refusal to share the password of the school computer.
Later, the court granted four days’ remand for Pabitra, Prosecution Department SI Rukonuzzaman said.
A CCTV video clip, which went viral on Facebook around Wednesday, shows a woman dragging a child wearing a school uniform into a room.
She began slapping the child from the moment she entered the room, as shown in the video, then speaking to another person sitting in the room, appearing to make an accusation.
The woman is seen pinning the child down on a sofa and repeatedly slapping and scolding him. Then a man can be seen moving towards the child with a stapler in hand.
He can be seen pretending to staple the child’s mouth shut. He also repeatedly used his hands to signal the child to stop.
At one point in the video, the man leaves the room before coming back in and choking the child on the sofa.
The video states that the incident occurred on Jan 18 around 1pm. The four minute 13 second clip sparked massive backlash, calls for the punishment of those involved, and for guardians to be more aware of how their children are being treated in school.
