THE news of a child being abducted, missing without a trace amid hair-splitting agony of the victim's parents and then finally surfacing as a dead body leaves one chilled to the bone. It makes you jarringly aware of the booby-traps laid round the corner for your unsuspecting child to stray into.

The latest incident centred on 15-year-old Sakib Hassan, a student of class IX in Ullapara upazila of Sirajganj district. He had gone out with friends and school mates to celebrate Pahela Baishakh on Tuesday and his strangulated mortal remains were recovered from Bangabandhu Safari park in Gazipur on Friday. Based on the statements of the victim's so-called friends (in police custody), the police tracked down the dead boy in Gazipur park, quite some distance away from the child's village home   indicating a well-plotted conspiracy for demanding ransom, and failing which, finishing off the captive. Usually, ransom or no ransom, the kidnapped risks being murdered by the criminals who are constantly in fear of being identified and caught.

Mostafa Kamal, the father of the victim told the police that the perpetrator had demanded TK15 lakh in ransom money. Police are probing what part the child's friends had in the abduction and the killing and more precisely who had masterminded the dastardly crime. We can only suspect that interested   parties may try to pass it off as juvenile crime. Even if it were so, how grave the offense is and what an eye-opener this is to a dreadful dimension to social crimes.