Jessore Juvenile Correction Centre is responsible for the deaths

Offenders under the age of 18 are sent to the juvenile correction centres so they may be reformed. Those who are in charge of such institutions must be particularly sensitive and humane.

According to the Bangladesh's Children's Act 2013, if there is evidence against a child under the age of 18 of committing a criminal act, the child must be sent to a correctional centre rather than jail, so that he of she can be reformed and return to normal life. However, at the Jessore Juvenile Correction Centre, three boys were brutally killed by those who were given the responsibility of correcting the adolescents. No words are strong enough to condemn this incident. Even in the jail there have been no such killings in the recent past.

The gruesome details of the incident that have come appeared in the media and through law enforcement accounts are alarming, horrifying. Five officials of the centre, including the probation officer, assistant probation officer and a guard, beat the three adolescents to death in cold blood. Initially they claimed that the boys were killed while fighting among themselves.

State minister for Social Welfare Ashraf Ali Khan called it an isolated incident. Where a centre official decides to beat the adolescents until they are unconscious, how can that be called an isolated incident?

The fact is that when the chief guard complained against the boys to the probation officer, the boys got angry and beat him up on 3 August. As punishment, the authorities decided to beat up boys until they lost consciousness. The officials and guards then beat the boys on Thursday afternoon and left them unconscious on the floor. Three died on the spot and others were rushed to hospital in an unconscious condition later in the evening.

Authorities can punish juveniles at the centre if they commit wrong, but the punishment cannot cost them their lives. Authorities did not even report the incident to the police after the boys were beaten. It was the hospital authorities that reported the incident to police. Those in charge of the Jessore Juvenile Correction Center cannot avoid the responsibility for these murders. The law enforcement arrested five people, including a probation officer and an assistant probation officer, after the allegations were substantiated. The Department of Social Services has suspended the probation officer.

This is not the only case of irregularities, corruption and anarchy at the Jessore Juvenile Correction Center. In 2014, several teenagers cut their themselves with knives in protest of various irregularities and poor quality food at the centre. At that time, five or six had escaped from the centre.

None of the recommendations made by the inquiry committee formed after that incident have been implemented. How did this happen at the Juvenile Correction Centre where there is no permission to beat any inmate? The teenagers who were sent to the centre for a better future emerged as dead bodies. What is the explanation of this atrocity?

There are three juvenile correction centres in the country. Two of them are for boys in Tongi and Jessore and one for girls in Gazipur. Earlier, various irregularities, corruption and incidents of beatings took place in the centre of Tongi.

Two committees have been formed by the police and Social Services Department to probe into the killing of the three boys. We hope that the reports of these committees will be made public and those responsible will be punished. State minister for Social Welfare Ashraf Ali Khan called it an isolated incident. Where a centre official decides to beat the adolescents until they are unconscious, how can that be called an isolated incident?