State Minister faces flak for Jihad rescue remarks

State Minister for Home Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal has come under heavy fire from experts, politicians, journalists and the public for having doubted the presence of child 'Jihad' inside an abandoned deep tubewell pipe in Dhaka. Many blamed the minister's 'irresponsible' remark for the death of the boy. Some alleged the rescue work flagged after Kamal's 'insensitive' remark. People took to the social media to air their anger. They demanded the minister's resignation and legal action against those responsible for the failure of the rescue mission. Jihad, 4, son of Nasiruddin Fakir, a resident of Shahjahanpur Railway Colony, had fallen into a 600 feet deep pipe at a railway mump on Friday afternoon while playing. A railway contractor had not sealed the 14-inch-diametre pipe of the abandoned tube-well, though he was installing another deep tube well nearby. Fire Service officials tried to lift the boy from the bottom end of the old steel pipe in rescue efforts lasting for 23 hours and, at one stage, lowered a camera but could not spot the child. In the early hours of Saturday, junior minister Kamal spoke of his suspicion about the incident being a possible hoax. ‘...I'm sure there's no one down there,’ he had said. The child was lifted from the pit by volunteers minutes after rescuers had abandoned their search on Saturday afternoon. Witnesses and the members of some media crew blamed the Fire Service for calling off the rescue operation without being confirmed that the child was not there. Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University’s CSE department Dr Shahedur Rahman questioned the competence of the Fire Service and Civil Defence. Emon Mirza, a local, berated the state minister and the rescuers. Dr Rahman, now in Dhaka, was in amazed disbelief that the well-drilled Fire Service had not consulted anyone or set up a special squad to rescue the boy. ‘It’s not rocket science. The child could have been easily spotted if they used an infra-red camera. I'm sure we have such cameras here. I wonder why they were not used,’ he said. However, Fire Service Director General Ali Ahmed Khan defended their actions. He said they did not have cameras used for such searches. ‘We worked diligently with everything we had,’ he said, according to news agency.