When Sagor Howlader, 10, was riding his bicycle near his house last Sunday afternoon, he had not imagined how a normal day was about to take a turn for the worse. A student of class IV, Sagor was about to become yet another victim of a persisting mob-mentality plaguing the society.

A local watchman along with a group of villagers stopped him, saying his elder brother asked him to go near the local mosque.

“So I went with them. As soon as I reached the mosque, they all started to beat me while asking me why I had stolen money,” said the boy, now lying on a hospital bed in Jhalakathi sadar. 

He was so beaten because someone broke into the room of the imam of Alipur Jame Masjid and stole Tk 2,000. No one actually knew the culprit(s), but his captors blamed it on him, said Sagor, son of late Sultan Howlader at Alipur of Jhalakathi sadar.

“Please give me some water, I am very thirsty; I am going to die. Please let go of me. I did not steal the money…” he remembered crying out.

At one point, the perpetrators put him in a sack and tortured him some more in front of dozens of villagers. No one came to his rescue. 

“Finally they injected needles into the fingers of my legs and hands to force a confession; I kept crying out in pain,” he said.

When a bystander finally brought some water, he was sent away by the watchman.

The officer in charge of Jhalakathi Police Station said Sagor was tortured on Sunday night and admitted to the hospital on Monday morning.

“The torture continued from 6:00pm to 9:00pm before my mother and I rescued him,” said Rabea Aktar Sume, the elder sister of Sagor.

She filed a case against 10 people, including Sohorab, Atahar, Rob, Jamal, and Anwar on Thursday night.

“We finally filed the case when journalists stood beside us because we were afraid before,” said Sume

Sume and other members of the family have been threatened continuously for filing the case, she added.

The Daily Star has obtained an audio recording of the threat.

In the audio, a man, who identified himself as information ministry staffer Shamsul Haque, is heard threatening the victim's family and the journalists who reported on the incident.

The man, who also said that one of the accused was his brother, boasted that no one could touch his brother, not even police.

Sagor is out of danger though his leg is badly fractured, said Mehedi Hasan, the on-duty doctor.

This reporter tried to reach the imam but his cell phone was found switched off.

“Two of the accused have already been arrested and police are raiding different places to nab the others,” said the OC.