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When life turns into a nightmare

Memories of the only son’s brutal murder still haunt his parents

SABRINA KARIM MURSHED
It is more than the worst nightmare. It never came to mind that the parents' most precious of all -- Arian -could be taken away from them.
"I cannot imagine anyone killing a child," sobbed Selim Sarker, a receptionist of Monwara Hospital in Ramna. Selim's 16-month-old son Sadman Sadiq Sarker nicknamed Arian was found dead in a trunk in their Nayatola home in Dhaka on June 16. Selim shudders at the thought of the dreadful morning.
Arian and his father were in sleep when the boy's mother Kamrunnahar Lipi went shopping at 9:30am. "She left home latching the door from outside," Selim said adding the main gate of the building remains under
lock round the clock.
"I woke up to loud rings on the doorbell shortly before 10:00am but found no-one downstairs," Selim said. He then went to the bathroom and returned within three minutes only to find the door open and Arian missing. "I did not find Arian in bed but I wasn't worried at the time. I thought my wife came back from shopping and took Arian with her," Selim said.
Worries grew stronger only after Lipi came back from the market and went looking for the child in the neighbourhood. "We could not think our son was dead. We thought he was picked up for ransom or traffickers took him away," Selim said. They informed the police after a hectic search.
At about 1:30pm, Selim got a phone call that a little boy was found near Moghbazar Wireless Gate. He rushed
there along with the police only to find the call was a hoax.
By the time they came back home, the body of the child was retrieved from the trunk in the attic with head and shoulder injures and legs and eyes bloodstained.
"What harm did a kid do to the killers? Didn't they become soft watching his innocent face?" Selim broke down in tears. "Arian had just learned to call me bappi (father). I will never hear him calling me again."
It was unendurable for Arian's mother, who was shocked to the core at her son's death. A postgraduate student of Titumir College, Lipi was to sit for the final exams this year. "She is not in a state to speak," Selim said, adding Lipi is not having food properly.
Wadud Sarker, Selim's elder brother, said the inci-
dent was mysterious. "I wonder what motive prompted the killing when Selim or his wife never had any dispute or rivalry with anyone," he said.
Selim and his relatives and friends said it was impossible for an outsider to commit the crime alone. "Anyone from the building must be involved in it," Selim alleged.
The police picked up Mariam, a home help of a third-floor tenant, on Thursday for interrogation.
Arian's parents left their sublet room on the second floor of the house at 290 Nayatola after their son died. "Grisly memories would have haunted us more if we had stayed there," Selim said. They are staying with relatives only to find solace.
"No-one can compensate for what I lost," Selim said, adding he only wants to see the criminals punished.