Pakhi Begum lost her husband a couple of years ago, and has been raising four children on her own: 12-year-old daughter Rina, 8-year-old son Riyad, 5-year-old daughter Sharmin and 2-year-old son Badsha.
She was arrested on Monday and has been in jail with her youngest children, Sharmin and Badsha, for the past three days, after being charged under the Narcotics Control Act of 1990.
Her eldest daughter Rina (pictured with brother Riyad) said she was in their small home when police came in to conduct a search.
“At 11 am, a group of ten police officers and plainclothes officials, led by the head of the Narcotics Department of Dhaka Mohammed Farhad Hosaain came into the house and began searching the room of our neighbour, Badal, who is 21.” They then went to Pakhi Begum’s room, “smashing everything to find the drugs.”
One of the agents made a call on the mobile phone. After that, he moved to a corner of the room and took out a shopping bag, saying, “We got contraband medical drugs in this room.”
“I was stunned because we had never seen anything like that drug in our life,” Rina said.
Inspector Hosaain showed a 100-ml bottle of codeine Phensedyl syrup as evidence of the woman’s illegal trafficking.
Agents called Pakhi Begum on her mobile with the loudspeaker on. The woman said she was shopping for mall, but that word can mean consumer goods but is also slang for drugs.
When the woman arrived home half an hour later, she was arrested and taken to prison with her two youngest children. Neighbours said the attitude of the police was inhuman, that they violated the woman’s human rights by arresting her on fabricated evidence.
“I am still in shock,” daughter Rina said. “I wonder whether there is still any justice left in this world.”
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