Residents of North Charpukhia village in Jalalpur union of Katiadi upazila, Kishoreganj, allege that five children from four families have been handed over to others for money to pay for their parents’ drug habits.
According to local people, the spread of drugs has led some men and women in the village to give away their own children in return for money, which they then spend on drugs.
They say the five children were handed over at different times for sums ranging from Tk 20,000 to Tk 2 lakh, among them a newborn boy given away on 2 September for Tk 60,000. Some of the people who first took the children later passed them on to others for more money, residents say, raising concern about where the children are now and whether they are safe.
Residents say drug use in the village has reached alarming levels, damaging its social life and even making it hard for young people from the village to marry elsewhere. Many men and women of all ages are addicted, they say, and others are too afraid to protest. “We have small children too. We live in fear that if we protest, they could sell our children as well,” one resident said.
Residents also allege that some addicts expose their own children to drugs, including one five-year-old who was allegedly given drugs. The allegations could not be independently verified.
A class 10 student at Katiadi Government High School, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “I can’t say which village I’m from any more. When I say North Charpukhia, people say, you are all addicts; people in your village sell their children for drug money.”
Jalalpur union parishad chairman Md Rafiqul Islam said drugs had taken a terrible hold on the village and he had heard that five children had been sold at different times to pay for drugs. He said he would work with council members and the administration to build a drug-free community.
Katiadi Model police station officer-in-charge Mohammad Rafiqul Islam said the village is very poor and has many drug users, and police had received allegations that children were being handed over to others to pay for drugs. Legal action will be taken against drugs alongside efforts to raise awareness, he said.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report