Home
+
The girl’s family received Tk 15,000 in two years, or Tk 625 a month, for her work as a domestic help
Published : 06 Mar 2024, 04:19 AM
Lokesh Urang and Namita Urang did not hesitate to send their teenaged daughter Preeti Urang to work in The Daily Star Executive Editor Syed Ashfaqul Haque’s home in Dhaka’s Mohammadpur as a domestic help when they got the offer in 2022.
The couple have two other children to raise with little income from their work in a tea estate at Mirtinga in the Kamalganj Upazila of Moulvibazar, some 12 kilometres from the district town.
As temporary workers, they are not entitled to ration, provident fund and other facilities reserved for the permanent ones.
They would at least not face financial troubles during Preeti’s marriage when she would grow up, the couple thought when the English language daily’s local correspondent Mintu Deshwara came up with the offer of the job for the girl.
Two years later, when Mintu came in search of Preeti’s parents in the afternoon of Feb 6, Namita sensed something had happened to her daughter.
“Mintu lied to us and asked us to go to Sreemangal. Once there, he said we would need to go to Dhaka. After reaching Dhaka around 10pm, we were directly taken to the police station where the police told us that my daughter had died.”
Namita beat her chest as she recounted how they had learnt about Preeti’s death. Lokesh stepped forward and held her before she fell to the ground because of the unbearable pain of losing a child.
Preeti’s body was found next to Ashfaqul’s house that morning.
FROM MIRTINGA TO MOHAMMADPUR
Lokesh said Namita’s brother Fulsai Urang informed him that The Daily Star’s Mintu was looking for a girl who could live with the family and look after their two children.
Lokesh and Namita believed it would be safe to send Preeti to work as Khushi Urang, daughter of Namita’s sister Sushila Urang, had been working there for nine years.
“As we had one of our girls there, we had thought there would be no problem in sending another,” said Fulsai.
Mintu did not take phone calls for comment. In reply to a text message, he wrote: “The matter is under trial. I’ve nothing more to say.”
‘FALL TO DEATH’
The circumstances of her death are not clear. Police said she died after falling from the eighth floor flat of Ashfaqul.
Witnesses said the girl was hanging from the balcony for sometime before plunging to her death.
Lokesh accused the journalist and his wife Tania Khondoker of culpable homicide, or negligence leading to death, in a case filed at Mohammadpur Police Station.
Police said they wrote the case statement and read it out to Lokesh before taking his fingerprint as a proof of his consent because he is illiterate, but Lokesh and Namita said they believed it was to get the body of their daughter.
The case states that Lokesh saw police officers and crowds next to Ashfaqul’s house at 11pm on that day, but the couple claimed they were not allowed to leave the police station overnight after reaching there directly upon arrival in Dhaka.
After leaving the station in the afternoon the next day, they went to the mortuary and headed back home with the body.
Supreme Court lawyer Abul Hasan said the couple were supposed to be allowed to see the body first before filing the case.
“They could have brought different charges had they found signs of assault on the body,” he said.
Mahfuzul Haque Bhuiyan, chief of the police station, said they followed the instructions of the couple and their relatives to write the case statement.
He also said there would be no problem if the investigators think the charges mentioned in the case should be changed.
Md Ashraful Islam, a deputy of police’s Detective Branch which is investigating the case, said: “We will mention what we find in the investigation. New charges will be added if the investigation backs them.”
Satyajit Das, a local representative of Bangladesh Legal Aid Services Trust, said the organisation has decided to provide legal help to Preeti’s family.
NO MONTHLY PAYMENT, LIMITED CONTACT WITH FAMILY
Cousin Khushi had returned home two weeks before Preeti’s death, and the family decided that they would not send her back.
In the nine years she had worked at Ashfaqul’s home, Khushi got leave only two times.
Her family got Tk 45,000 from Ashfaqul to buy a cow last year, besides some lump sums throughout the years Khushi had worked there, but no monthly payment, according to Fulsai.
Lokesh said they took Tk 15,000 from Ashfaqul in the two years Preeti worked at his home – which is equivalent to Tk 625 a month.
Khushi said Preeti and she had limited contact with their families.
The Ashfaqul-Tania couple allowed Preeti to contact the family sometimes in the first year of her work, but there was no contact in one year, said Lokesh.
“When I called him [Ashfaqul] once, he said he was busy in a meeting and would call me after getting home. When I called him the next week, he said he was away from home,” he said.
Ashfaqul stopped receiving his calls afterwards, according to Lokesh.
Khushi said they were allowed to eat whatever Ashfaqul’s family ate. “There was no problem in our meals or living,” she said.
She also said they were tasked with keeping the house tidy and clean. “They needed two domestic workers for the job.”
“I was sometimes beaten up with bare hands or sticks for mistakes. Preeti was also assaulted two times,” Khushi said.
UNDERAGE DOMESTIC WORKERS
Khushi, now 17, was only 8 years old when she had started working at Ashfaqul’s home. It was Mintu who got her the job.
Another child worker was seriously wounded after falling from the same flat of Ashfaqul in a daring bid to escape through a window.
The family of 9-year-old Ferdousi, identified with a single name, are in dire financial and existential trouble with two other children to raise, while Ferdousi is unable to even stand up on her own. She endures excruciating pain while urinating after two surgeries following the incident.
A cloud of uncertainty looms over her future as she spends most of her days at home struggling to cope with her injuries, while children her age attend school and enjoy playtime.
That case was settled last month, with the acquittal of the accused on payment of a Tk 200,000 cheque, while Ashfaqul and Tania remain in jail over Preeti’s death.
Yasmin Akter Askma, a teacher of the local school where Preeti had studied, said the girl was 7 years old when she had been in the play group in 2018, which means she was 11 years when she had started working and 13 during her death, although police recorded her age as 15.
“She was very skittish and a good dancer. She visited my home often. I felt very bad after hearing of her death. I think the child faced some kind of torture,” Yasmin said.
Preeti’s actual age could not be confirmed as the tea estates generally do not keep records of births.
According to the 2009 government guidelines on employment of domestic workers, teenagers aged 14 to 18 can work as domestic workers, while children as young as 12 can engage in light work with parental consent.
Lawyer Abul Hasan said the Labour Act of 2006 prohibits any sort of child labour.
“The question arises why they [Ashfaqul and Tania] would employ only children as domestic workers. They could have taken the responsibility of the children as their guardians and given them education, but they took the children only for work. It’s a clear violation of the law.”
Dhona Bauri, a local leader of the Mirtinga Tea Workers Union and member of the local union council, said” “Preeti was a schoolgirl. The people, who lured her into working as a domestic help, are educated. Don’t they know about the law on child labour?”
‘MURDER,’ LOCALS ALLEGE
Dhona also alleged secrecy in the death of Preeti and her funerals.
“I should have been informed as a public representative, but Mintu took [Preeti’s family] to Dhaka without informing us. When I started calling them, they did not receive. They gave excuses and completed the funerals at midnight,” he said.
“These are unrestrained acts of fraud. It’s a murder. A similar incident happened in the house earlier. We condemn the incident and demand their [Ashfaqul and Tania’s] exemplary punishment.”
Shankar Tanti, a member of the Bangladesh Tea Workers Union, said: “We think it was a murder. Even if Preeti jumped to her death, she must’ve been forced to die by suicide through torture.”
[Writing in English by Osham-ul-Sufian Talukder]
