Bangladesh: Boy Killers Sentenced To Death
The two cases have provoked outrage in Bangladesh where the authorities have been accused of failing to protect young children.
14:39 Sunday 08 November 2015
The video showing Rajon being tortured went viral
Six men have been sentenced to death for torturing and killing two young boys in Bangladesh earlier this year.
Samiul Islam Rajon, 13, died in July of a brain haemorrhage after suffering multiple wounds to the head during an attack in Sylhet.
The second victim, 12-year-old Rakib Hawlader, died in August after his former employer at a car repair shop used a nozzle to pump air into his rectum after he quit his job.
Rakib Hawlader
A 28-minute video of Rajon screaming for help as he was being beaten was posted online and went viral.
He pleads with his attackers: "Don't beat me, please, I will die, I will die."
The men, who accused him of trying to steal a bicycle rickshaw van, can he heard laughing and jeering.
Like many poor children in Bangladesh, Rajon was forced to leave school to work to help his family, in his case selling vegetables.
The main suspect, Kamrul Islam, fled to Saudi Arabia but was detained there and deported last month to face trial.
Judge Akbar Hossain Mridha found Islam and three others guilty of fatally torturing Rajon and sentenced all four to death.
Four others involved in the beating were sentenced to prison terms ranging from one year to life.
The judge in the other case, Dilruba Sultana, said the owner of the car repair shop in Khulna and an employee had tortured Hawlader, who later died in a hospital, and ordered both to be executed.
Thousands of people in Bangladesh took to the streets demanding justice after both cases came to light.
