People around were just watching as the eight-year-old started to disappear into the canal in Nimtala of Chittagong but then he came in, jumped into the water and rescued the child.

The rescuer, traffic constable Md Monir Hossain was on his way to work at Truck Terminal of Nimtala around 9:30am yesterday when he saw a crowd.

To find out what was going on, he approached Khalpar area close to the terminal.

He said, "Only the hands of the boy were visible then but no one was going forward to rescue him."

Without a second though, Monir jumped into the 25-feet-deep water full of filth and saved Sajjad Hossain, son of Shahadat Hossain of nearby Saber Colony.

"Really I felt great when more than 300 people on the bank of the canal praised me for rescuing the boy as I handed him over to his father," said Monir who is now posted to the Bandar Traffic Department of Chittagong Metropolitan Police (CMP).

"Pray for me so that I can work for the people's well-being," he added.  

Having been rescued, Sajjad, a class-two student of Halishahar Makbulia Government Primary School, told his father that on his way to school he had slipped on a banana peel and slid into the canal.

The boy does not know how to swim, said Shahadat, a lorry driver.

"Had he [Monir] not been there, my son would have been drowned," he said.

Meanwhile, CMP declared that it would award Monir in recognition of his courageous act, said CMP Commissioner Abdul Jalil Mandol.