Bangladesh sentences 6 to death in torture deaths of 2 boys
DHAKA, BANGLADESH: Courts in Bangladesh sentenced six people to death Sunday for torturing and killing two young boys earlier this year.
Samiul Islam Rajon, 13, died in July after he was brutally beaten. A 28-minute video of Rajon screaming for help as he was being beaten was posted online and went viral, shocking a nation long inured to violence against children.
In the second incident, Rakib Hawlader, 12, died in August after his former employer at a car repair shop used a nozzle to pump air into his rectum and filled his body with air in retaliation for quitting his job.
Judge Akbar Hossain Mridha found the main suspect in Rajon's death, Kamrul Islam, and three others guilty of fatally torturing the boy and sentenced all four to death. Four others involved in the beating death were sentenced to prison terms ranging from a year to life.
In the video of Rajon's beating, recorded with a cellphone camera, the boy is heard screaming in pain and pleading with his attackers: "Don't beat me, please, I will die, I will die." The attackers laughed at the boy when he asked for water.
Like many poor children in Bangladesh, Rajon was forced to leave school to work to help his family, in his case selling vegetables.
The main suspect fled to Saudi Arabia but was detained there and deported last month through Interpol to face trial.
Separately on Sunday, Judge Dilruba Sultana said that the owner of the car repair shop and an employee had tortured Hawlader, who later died in a hospital. Both were sentenced to death.
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