Imagine a kid on the street with no one around, tears rolling down his cheeks. What is your first reaction? You feel pity for him and would like to help in any way possible. If he is lost and knows an address or has a slip of paper mentioning it, with enough time on your hands, you would probably take him home.
Well, don’t anymore! Because children apparently lost and unable to find their way back, with tears in their eyes or not, could be members of a criminal gang with dubious motives.
18 years old Sanjida Akter (not her real name) was a victim of such an incident when she was on her way back home the other day. She was a newcomer in Dhaka and got admitted into a university admission coaching centre.
It was a Friday and around 12pm, so the street in the capital’s Rajarbagh area through which she was going, riding a rickshaw, was quieter than usual. Sanjida saw a little kid wearing a T-shirt by the roadside, alone and crying. She stopped her rickshaw to talk to him.
Upon her enquiry, the boy said his name was Niloy and resided at the AGB colony in Motijheel. He also said he had come out of home to buy chocolate and then lost his way after going far afield in search of it.
Sanjida, who was a resident of Wari, felt pity for the kid and offered to give him a lift. She instructed the rickshaw operator to take them to the colony first and then her to Wari.
They reached a house of the colony identified as B/56, which was where the boy said he lived with his parents. The rickshaw was pulled off the road and she took the boy inside.
After 15 minutes, when she was not still back from the house, the driver approached it and shouted by calling her “sister.” He did that several times and then suddenly a door opened and Sanjida dashed out of it, crying and gasping.
The Dhaka Tribune came to learn of several such incidents that took place in the capital, involving little kids who appeared to be lost to entrap potential do-gooders.
Organised criminal gangs sometimes hire street children to lure people into their dens, to rob them or rape (in case of girls). The group that lured Sanjida robbed her of her belongings and tried to rape her, but her dignity was saved thanks to the rickshaw operator.
According to sources, these children usually take position in streets less crowded and emptier, with a ready story for generating sympathy and an address to take them to.
Police said about 20 such cases were recorded in the last six months in the capital. However, these incidents mostly go unreported, especially if the victims are women.
Interestingly, most of the victims of the reported cases were newcomers to the capital and women, who were alone and going to their office or back home after the sunset.
In this regard, Monirul Islam, a joint-commissioner of the Detective Branch of Police, said police were aware of criminal gangs coming up with different methods of cheating to entrap people.
“We often launch raids to arrest these criminals. However, I would suggest anyone meeting such children on the street, abandoned or lost, to never take them to their intended place. They should take them to the nearest police station.”