When a Thief is Beaten — And We Stay Silent
- Niaz Murshed Chowdhury
- May 28, 2020
- 2 min read
Updated: Jul 7
Writer: Niaz Murshed Chowdhury
Originally written May 28, 2020
I was an HSC student back then, living in a small hostel in Chattogram city. One day, a petty thief got caught trying to steal another student’s wallet. The moment he was caught, the students turned into a furious mob. They didn’t just beat him — they beat him so badly that they didn’t spare a single part of his body, not even the soles of his feet. They stretched his legs out straight and struck the bottoms of his feet with belts until he howled in pain.
I remember that day so clearly because I felt pity for him — and for that, my friends mocked me. They laughed at my sympathy for a “thief.” Many of those same boys today are lawyers, bankers, men with respected jobs and big titles. But that day, not one of them hesitated to unleash such cruelty on another human being — one of the Creator’s own creations.
Later, a fight broke out between two student groups at the university. It escalated so badly that the university shut down indefinitely. So I went back to my old hostel. It was Ramadan. After Fajr prayer one morning, my friends and I stepped outside — only to see another shocking scene. A young teenage boy, tied to an electric pole, surrounded by a mob. They were beating him mercilessly. They pinned his fingers against the pole and smashed them with bricks so he’d never steal again.
I pleaded with them — begged them to stop — but no one listened. Later I heard that boy had been caught stealing iron rods from a nearby house.
And now, all these years later, I read the news of a child — a child — beaten to death for allegedly stealing. They tortured him so brutally that it shames the cruelty of any so-called “dark age.” When that child begged for water in his final moments, his killers mocked him and said, “Drink your sweat instead!” How cold and heartless must someone be to do this?
There must be justice for this child. There must be a reckoning so that no one ever thinks they can torture and kill in the name of “punishment.” No one chooses to steal out of desire alone — our society creates thieves. We have not fixed the inequality that leaves so many people desperate. We have not given them even the smallest chance to live with dignity.
How can we claim moral authority to punish them when we fail so badly to help them survive? We spend on luxuries, on food we throw away, on expensive clothes, phones, laptops — and yet we never pause to see the child next door who goes to sleep hungry.
If we cannot give them a chance to live, we have no right — no right — to beat them for trying to survive.

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