Deep scars crisscross the frail body of a seven-year-old boy at the center of a criminal case that investigators say exposes pure evil.
His father pulled the boys pants down, wanting to show the injuries that fill him with rage and anguish. His sons penis had nearly been cut off.
They beat me. They said they would make me beg. They would kill me, the boy said. I threatened to tell my father and police on them. They cut my throat, they cut my belly, they cut my penis.
They also bashed his skull with a brick.
Investigators say members of a criminal gang were trying to force the boy to become a beggar on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladeshs capital.
The boy was slashed many times, his healed wounds now forming a large cross in scar tissue across a section of his chest and from his throat to his pelvis. Investigators with Bangladeshs elite police force, the Rapid Action Battalion, say the gang members were trying to kill him because he refused to beg and would be able to identify them to the police.
But he survived, and he and his family have been placed in a witness protection program. The boy is now the star witness in a case that has exposed a criminal gang that, according to investigators, has snatched children off the streets, maimed them and sent them out to beg for money.
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