Skewer attack on child worker
ZEESHAN JAWED
The scar on Mushtaq’s neck. (Amit Datta)
A restaurant employee drove a skewer into a 12-year-old co-worker’s neck on Tuesday evening for allegedly not following instructions.
Mohammed Mushtaq, one of several alleged child workers employed by the owner of Bombay Restaurant on Zakaria Street, was lucky to be alive after bleeding profusely for half an hour without treatment.
Sources said the owner, Taufiq Ahmed, panicked and hid the boy in a nearby business establishment after the assailant, 39-year-old Mohammed Nizam, fled. By the time someone informed police about the incident and Mushtaq was taken to hospital, the boy was unconscious and his white vest soaked in blood.
“The skewer pierced the left side of his neck and went in almost 1.5 inches. An X-ray and other tests will reveal the extent of damage. As of now, he is being treated specifically for respiratory distress,” said Sudipto Pal, the doctor who treated the boy in the emergency unit of Medical College and Hospital.
The incident occurred around 6.30pm, when Mushtaq was busy wrapping kati rolls and the accused was supervising work in the kitchen.
A witness said Mushtaq, who is from Samastipur in Bihar, was first abused and then slapped. When he started crying, head worker Nizam allegedly hit him repeatedly. “He next picked up a skewer from the kebab counter and thrust it at the boy’s neck. The owner was at the cash counter watching everything, but he did not utter a word. The 30-odd customers at the restaurant did not intervene either,” said the witness who did not wish to be identified.
As blood gushed out of Mushtaq’s wound and he screamed in pain, his assailant ran out of the restaurant. “Around 30 people work in the restaurant. But the owner and his employees made no effort to stop Nizam,” the witness said.
When Mushtaq collapsed on the floor, employer Ahmed asked some members of his staff to take the boy to a nearby room and keep him there till he regained consciousness. It was only when a team from Jorasanko police station arrived that Ahmed asked his employees to take Mushtaq to a hospital, an investigator said.
Manager Parvez Hussain and three other workers first took Mushtaq to a local doctor, who refused to treat him without a police complaint being filed. They then took him to Islamia Hospital, from where the bleeding boy was shifted to Medical College and Hospital late in the evening.
Ahmed was later taken to Jorasanko police station for questioning. According to residents of the area, Bombay Restaurant employs 12 to 15 child workers. “They are forced to work for up to 15 hours a day in return for a few hundred rupees a month. Their seniors assault them at the slightest pretext,” said a shopkeeper.