He asked for water, they didn’t give it: Mother grieves clutching dead son’s sandals

Crowds had gathered in front of a tea stall near Talukdar Bari home in Madhyam Kanchan Nagar village of Kanchan Nagar union under Fatikchhari upazila of Chattogram. Tea seller Muhammad Lokman and his wife, Khadija Akhter were surrounded by the crowd.

Moving closer, Khadija’s cries were heard amid the murmur of voices. Clutching her son’s sandals tightly to her chest, she wept, “My dear son, in his final moments, he begged for a sip of water. They did not allow him even that. They beat him to death right before our eyes.”

Accused of being a “thief,” Khadija’s only son, Muhammad Rihan, was beaten to death early on Friday morning right before her eyes. Alongside two other teenagers, he was brutally assaulted by a mob in the Cheinga Bridge area of the village.

His friends Muhammad Rahat, 15, and Muhammad Manik, 14, survived but are undergoing treatment at Chattogram Medical College Hospital in critical condition.

Rihan’s father, Muhammad Lokman, runs a canteen at a local school and had recently opened a tea stall near their home for some extra income. Rihan would often help him there after school. On Saturday, his grieving parents were found in front of that very tea stall, unable to stop their cries of anguish.

Khadija recalled her son’s birth in her lament. After three stillbirths, Rihan had been the child who finally brought joy into her life. To her, his birth had been like a triumph over the world. She had dreamed of making her dear son a hafiz of the Qur’an, of raising him to be a good man.

Breaking down, she wailed, “Oh Rihan, oh Rihan!” Her cries silenced the surrounding crowd. Villagers are so shaken by the brutality of what had happened that it would take them a long time to forget.

What deepened Khadija’s grief even more was a pair of bangles her son had bought for her. Only days earlier, on Tuesday evening, Rihan had returned from the market with the bangles, bringing tears of joy to his mother’s eyes. Who could have known this would be his last gift to her?

On Wednesday morning, he borrowed money from his mother and set off for a trip to Cox’s Bazar along with his friends Rahat and Manik. After two days of fun at the beach, the boys were returning home Thursday night, never imagining the journey would end in tragedy.

Around 4:00 am on Friday, the boys got off an auto-rickshaw in front of Rihan’s father’s tea stall. Suddenly, seven to eight men armed with sticks and local weapons chased them, shouting “Thief! Thief!”

Trying to escape, the terrified boys ran onto the roof of an under-construction two-storey building about 200 metre away from Rihan’s home. They were dragged down, tied up, and mercilessly beaten on a bridge, where Rihan died from the assault. Friday evening, he was buried in the family graveyard.

Rihan’s father said, “The accused are now offering money to stop us from filing the case. They are saying they will pay a million (10 lakh) taka if needed. But I will not sell out my son.”

Why were the three boys beaten so savagely, only on suspicion of theft? Some villagers believe it was because of their friendship with boys from another neighbourhood. Khadija herself was saying the same while wailing.

She said, “They killed them just because they were friends with boys from another village. Just for that! I don’t want anything else now. I just want the killers to be hanged.”

Khadija filed a case naming five men in this incident. Police have arrested two suspects named Muhammad Noman, 22, and Muhammad Azad, 23, already. The other three are named Nazim Uddin, Muhammad Tayeb, and Mohiuddin. All five of them are residents of Madhyam Kanchan Nagar village.

Police suspect an old grudge may have fuelled the attack, staged under the pretext of theft. The suspects’ homes are just 300 metres apart from Rihan’s house. While visiting the suspects’ homes Saturday afternoon, nobody was found there. Their neighbours said they have fled along with their families.

On the other hand, while visiting slain Rihan’s home, his class-seven textbooks and school uniform were found laying on his bed, as reminder of a life cut short.

Local residents said that two weeks earlier, Rihan had quarrelled with one of the arrested men, Azad, at his father’s tea stall. They believe the killing may have been linked to that grudge.

Rihan died around 6:30 am on Friday, in front of hundreds of villagers, yet no one could intervene as the attackers prevented anyone from approaching. In addition, they deleted photos and videos from the phones of those who filmed the incident from afar. Some were even beaten for taking photos.

Meanwhile, the two surviving victims, Rahat and Manik, live three kilometres away from the scene of the incident in Maizpara. Their parents are now in Chattogram with their hospitalised sons. Manik’s grandmother, Nasima Khatun, said, “My grandson is a madrasa student in class eight. How could they tie up such a boy and beat him? I want justice.”

Rahat’s uncle, Muhammad Ayub Soudagar, said his nephew, a class-eight student at the local school, was returning from Cox’s Bazar with his friends when they became victim of this brutal incident at the hands of some miscreant youths. He demanded proper justice for this brutality.

Another of Rahat’s uncles, Tajul Islam said there had long been tension between youths of Maizpara and Madhyam Kanchan Nagar over friendships across neighbourhood boundaries. This enmity, he believes, led to the fatal assault.

Chattogram Superintendent of Police (SP) Saiful Islam visited the crime scene Saturday afternoon. He met Rihan’s father, consoled him and assured the family that the killers would face exemplary punishment.