Eight-year-old Md Fahim lost his two fingers as he curiously took a ball-like object in his hand found inside an abandoned bag near his house yesterday.
Fahim is the latest addition in the list of children falling victims to abandoned crude bomb explosions in recent political unrest.
After returning from school Fahim was playing with a tennis ball with his playmate Yasin, seven, in front of his house in capital’s Madhyapara.
“At one stage, they noticed a bag nearby. They found a ball wrapped in red tape inside. As Fahim took it out, it exploded creating a big bang,” described Fahim’s mother Nasima Akhter.
Fahim, son of a rickshaw-puller Md Shahidul Islam and a student of class-II in Madhya Badda Government Primary School, was taken to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital immediately.
Dr Hasan Mahmud at DMCH said the explosion blew away ring finger and small finger of his right hand. Rest of his fingers in both hands and abdomen also were injured.
Abdul Jalil, officer-in-charge of Badda police station, said two unidentified criminals had left the bag at the place where the children were playing.
With the increased usage of crude bombs in opposition enforced hartals and blockade programmes, number of children are falling victims to such explosions at an alarming rate.
According to reports, at least two children were killed while more than 40 sustained injuries in explosions of bombs allegedly left by the hartal-supporting pickets. At least 11 children sustained injuries in such explosions in the month of November last year.
Concerned at the continued use of children in political demonstrations in the country, last year on November 20, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) urged all parties to keep children away from violence.
The concern came after several children came under arson and bomb attacks during the recent shutdowns enforced by the BNP-led 18-party opposition combine.
On January 5, the right wrist of a 12-year-old boy was blown off in an abandoned crude bomb explosion in capital’s Islambagh area.
On December 21, a five-year-old kid became victim of political violence as his left wrist and two fingers of the right hand were blown off while fiddling with a cocktail mistaking it for a ball in Rajshahi.
On November 1, 10-year-old Murad Hossain, son of a CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver in Panthapath area, on November 20, two children- Tofazzal, 11, and Lokman, 10- sustained injuries in Shahbagh in similar incidents.
On October 3, three-and–a-half year old Lima Akhter, daughter of car driver Al Amin, lost all her five fingers of the right hand while another minor girl Rahima was injured in the same way in capital’s Jurain on October 29.
Director of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum Abdus Sahid Mahmud told The Dhaka Tribune that children had always been exploited by political parties and criminals however, this was a new dimension that had pushed them in a really vulnerable state.
“Using children for carrying arms and drugs are familiar forms of exploitation. But the recent trend of leaving bombs and explosives at an abandoned state is a new dimension to make them victims,” said Mahmud.
“In this circumstance, we ask the guardians to stay alert so that children do not touch anything and everything they find abandoned around while political parties should be more sensitive and take measures to ensure their activists do not leave the dangerous explosive materials here and there.”
Additional Deputy Commissioner Sanwar Hossain, also the chief of Bomb Disposal Unit of the Detective Branch said in some of the cases, children fell victims while carrying the explosives in exchange of money from the criminals.
“Criminals often leave bombs at abandoned states to achieve their targets without taking any risk. Their target is to cause casualties,” he said.
