At lunchtime at the neurology ward of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, a small girl opens her eyes slightly and glances at the plate of rice and fish set next to her.
With a smile on her lips, she starts eating eagerly, lying down as she is unable to lift her head from the pillow. But after eating just a little, she stops and is not able to continue.
The girl, who came to the capital a couple of months ago dreaming of square meals, is now languishing on a hospital bed with head wounds and injury marks all over her body.
Calling herself Aduri, which means “beloved” in Bangla, she says she is 11 years old, but due to malnutrition, she looks about seven.
She says her father’s name is Khaleq Mridha and her mother is Shafia Begum. But she is too traumatised to remember the name of her village, or recall the person who brought her to Dhaka to work as a house maid.
Talking to this correspondent on Tuesday, she said her employers used to call her Monika, but she did not know their names. In a feeble voice, she claimed they often beat her and did not feed her properly, despite her repeated prayers. And then one day, they threw her out like garbage.
Aduri was rescued by a police officer a day earlier from a dustbin in the city’s Baridhara area.
Abdul Mannan, an assistant sub-inspector of Cantonment police station, told the Dhaka Tribune that while he was patrolling the area on Monday, he noticed a crowd in front of an open dustbin and stopped to have a look.
There was something moving in the mound of rubbish, and Mannan discovered it was but a little girl, barely alive. He immediately rushed her to the hospital.
Mannan said the owners of the house where she worked might have dumped her in the dustbin after torture, thinking she was dead.
“We are investigating the incident. Once she is able to give a statement and her guardians are found, it will be easier to take action against the people who did this to her,” he said.
Rajiul Haque, a doctor of the neurosurgery department, said they were treating the child with medicines and food to help her recover from her injuries.
“When she was admitted, she was unable to utter a single word. We gave her saline and some medicines. Now, she is able to speak a little, and we hope she will regain her health with good treatment and care,” Haque said.
Momtaz Begum, a patient in the bed next to Aduri’s, expressed her disgust at how some people were able to torture such a small child.
“They are nothing but a group of animals who are living in the capital wearing the mask of people,” she said angrily, demanding capital punishment for such people.
