Shawdesh Desk:

Doctors declared domestic help Sadia Akhter dead when her employer rushed her to a private clinic at Kalabagan in the capital on October 13 last year.

Employer Mirza Amer claimed the 17-year-old teenage girl committed suicide, but her family members alleged she was killed.

Police sent the body to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) for autopsy.

Sadia was not alone who received such mysterious death in 2021.

Deaths of at least eight domestic help were shrouded in mystery in 2021, according to the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS).

In the last five years from 2017 to 2021, at least 31 domestic helps were killed either by their employers or employers’ family members across the country.

The deaths of at least 63 domestic workers were veiled in mystery.

According to BILS, 21 domestic help died in 2017, 10 in 2018, 12 in 2019, 12 in 2020 and eight in 2021. Deaths of all these housemaids were shrouded in mystery.

Biplob Hossain, sub-inspector of Kalabagan Police Station, is now investigating the case filed over the death of Sadia.

When contacted, Biplob told the Daily Sun that they are yet to uncover the mystery behind the death of the ill-fated girl as they are yet to find the autopsy report from the DMCH.

When asked over delay of providing the autopsy report, Dr Maksud, chief of Forensic Medicine Department of the DMCH, declined to make any comment on the matter.

Rumana Akhter, special superintendent of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), told the Daily Sun that a complete post mortem report requires the reports of different tests, including DNA, viscera and pathology tests.

The tests are carried out by CID, hospitals and others concerned.  It needs time to collect all the reports for its compilation. So it is getting late, she said.

Abdul Hossain, acting coordinator of Domestic Workers Rights Network (DWRN), told the Daily Sun that those were not mysterious deaths rather those were pre-planned murders.

“The domestic aids are working-class people. They are fall victims to abuse. In most cases, they don’t complain as they think they are poor and destined to such ill fate,” he said.

“Despite abuse, such housemaids are not traumatized that they will commit suicide.  So there is no reason for them to commit suicide,” he said.

Their family members also don’t show any interest in filing case against the accused, he also said.

Though they lodge cases, police record first information report (FIR) that needs witnesses for deposition in the court, but the family members cannot find witnesses. At one stage they find no option but to withdraw the case, he added.

In another incident on January 29 last year, one employer admitted his 14-year-old housemaid Antara Akhter to Ghior Upazila Health Complex in Manikganj, saying that she took poison. The girl died there soon after her admission.

The girl worked at the house of influential Abdul Motin Musa of Kusta area in the upazila.

Antara was the daughter of Shahjahan Mia of Nehalpur in Shibalaya upazila in the district. Her family members suspected that Antara might have been killed.

According to investigation, the girl committed suicide by taking poison, Riaz Uddin Ahmed Biplob, officer-in-charge (OC) of Ghior Police Station, told the Daily Sun.

In another incident on May 11, 2020, body of 14-year-old housemaid Marufa Akhter was found hanging behind her employer’s residence on Hospital Road at Mohonganj in Netrokona.

Aklima Akhter, mother of the victim, alleged her daughter was killed by her employer Shah Mahbub Morshed, who was the chairman of Singdha Union Parishad.

Rashedul Islam, officer-in-charge of Mohonganj Police Station, who was posted at the station last year, said he was unaware of the incident.