Nearly 23 hours after four-year-old boy Jihad slipped into a deep pipe of an abandoned railway pump at Shahjahanpur Railway Colony, private rescuers retrieved his body after their hectic efforts on Saturday afternoon. Assistant Director of Fire Service Headquarters Rafiqul Islam said the boy was rescued around 3 pm and then sent to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Minutes after he was rushed to the DMCH, doctors said that the boy is already dead. Private rescuers retrieved Jihad’s body shortly after Fire Service postponed their rescue operation having failed to trace the boy in the pipe with a sophisticated camera. Local people and some mechanics created an iron-made catcher and pulled out Jihad’s body from the bottom of the pipe with it. Jihad, son of Nasir Uddin of the railway colony, suddenly slipped into the deep pipe around 4:30 pm on Friday while playing near the abandoned pump house, said officials at Fire Service and Civil Defence (FSCD) control room. Earlier, the rescuers’ efforts to detect the position of Jihad with a sophisticated GoPro camera 11 hours after his fall also turned futile as the picture shown seemed to be of a sack or clothes. Contacted, FSCD assistant director (Dhaka) Rafiqul Islam said they had first tried to rescue Jihad with the help of a rope and a sack but it went in vain. “The mouth of the pipe is only 16-17-inch in diameter. Besides, it was very difficult to climb up for the child holding a rope,” he added. Some food, juice and mineral water were also dropped into the pipe along with a torchlight. They were also constantly providing oxygen into the pipe to keep the boy alive. Fire brigade men also lifted a two-inch pipe along with a pump having inside the 16-17 inch pipe to facilitate the rescue operation. Meanwhile, the railway authorities suspended senior sub-assistant engineer Jahangir Alam for the negligence of his duty.–UNB, Dhaka.
