Eleven o’clock in the morning at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on a workday last week and a crowd could be seen at the car park in front of the administrative building.
A closer look revealed they had gathered around a man in his late twenties. A cardboard sign hung from his neck.
The placard read: “I am a thief. I steal shoes. Keep me in mind.”
The young man’s hair looked like it had been haphazardly cut recently. His face was swollen and battered, and bruises and cuts were visible on various parts of his body.
A member of the internal defence force, the Ansar Bahini, said that the man was caught stealing shoes at the hospital when people went to say the morning prayers. He was also dressed in a loose tunic and pajamas, as if he was going to say his prayers, said the Ansar member. He added that because so early in the morning security is laid back, the man chose that time to steal the shoes left outside the prayer room.
The Ansar member said he was about to slip away with several shoes hidden in the folds of his tunic.
His movements aroused a security guard’s suspicions, who found the shoes when he stopped and searched the man.
The usual mob justice followed and the young man was severely beaten by the angry men who’d come to pray.
The “thief” said he lived nearby, in Old Dhaka, and that his name was Mobarak. He said he was the eldest of three brothers and four sisters. When he was in class nine, he dropped out of school.
Mobarak then told the Dhaka Tribune how he became addicted to heroin.
Four years ago, Mobarak took heroin for the first time when his friends gave him cigarettes laced with heroin. Soon he was craving the drug, and he began to take things from the house that he sold to buy heroin. Before long he was stealing from relatives and shoplifting in local stores.
His father only came to know about his addiction a few days ago, and kicked Mobarak out of the house.
Mobarak said to buy heroin he needed around Tk50-60 every couple of days. He and his friends scored from Old Dhaka’s Ganaktuli area and went to a spot in Chankharpul, close to the DMCH, to smoke it.
The night before he was caught and beaten, when he started to crave his next hit he did not have the money to buy, so he snuck into the hospital and tried to steal the shoes.
His former neighbours said he worked at a local hardware store, where man who’d worked with him said Mobarak was fired when the owner of the store learned he was an addict.
Another resident from the locality said there are hundreds of young men like Mobarak in the area, who are victims of heroin addiction.
Dr Mushfiqur Rahman, deputy director of DMCH, said they did not take any action against Mobarak, who was allowed to go after he swore he would not enter the hospital again.
