Making money at the cost of minors’ lives

The detainees are the ringleader Md Zakir Hossain,55, his wife Marzina Begum,44, Md Hossain Sagor,22, Jesmin Begum,37, and Md Aslam,28, all hailing from Siddhirganj in Narayanganj, and Md Tito,29, of Demra in Dhaka. According to RAB, the gang that was operating its activities in the two districts for the last two years admitted, in primary interrogation, to picking up 17 underage children. They have already trafficked six of the children to the Middle East, RAB claimed. The elite force said it was working to trace the crime ring but kept failing in making it happen since the victims’ family members were hardly reporting the incidents to the law enforcers. In a media press note, the RAB said it had received just two complaints. One of the two victims named Emon is yet to be tracked-down despite the formal reports. The group used to demand ransom ranging from Tk20,000 to Tk50,000 considering the status and financial affordability of the family of a victim. Interestingly, the crime ring, as mentioned in the note, would spend just Tk200 abduction and use a micro-bus belonging to one of of its members, who is on the run, for its operations. Meanwhile, RAB Media Wing Director Mufti Mahmud Khan at a press briefing on Thursday in the capital city said that the detainees used to target the children from low-income groups, especially those who are not connected with their families, or  even those who go missing. Upon failure of the family of a kidnap victim in paying ransom, the criminals would traffic them abroad, he said. Mufti quoted the abductors say saying that their target group is the poor children since their families rarely bother to file a case over them going missing or being kidnapped. Even the detainees had kidnapped a child for a mere Tk1,500 ransom, he said, adding, they handed over eight of the victims after getting the ransom. But, the worst part of the criminal act is injecting the victims with tranquiliser. The crime racket has already injected two abductees --- Akash and Nazmul-- to death, the RAB official said. However, the RAB members managed to rescue a child named Md Bayezid victim on January 18, who was abducted from Siddhirganj on December 27 last year.