Body of 6-year-old girl retrieved from Dhaka canal

The body of ‘Ashamoni’ was retrieved on Thursday from a pile of waste which had accumulated under the canal about 1km away from the scene of the tragedy, according to Ershad Hossain, an official at the fire service’s control room.

“Most of waste materials in the canal have been cleaned in the last four days. One of our divers found the body during a search operation there.”

Ashamoni had been admitted to a primary school earlier this year. Her father ‘Ershad’, a native of Munshiganj, is a vendor in the capital’s Meraj Nagar.

She was playing with a few other children on the banks of the Kadamtoli canal on Feb 1. At one point, a ball rolled over into the canal and Ashamoni drowned as she attempted to recover it.

Nazmuzzaman, deputy assistant director of fire service, said that two of their units had been trying to rescue the child from the day she went missing. But the rescuers’ efforts were hindered by the garbage that had accumulated in the canal, he said.

Locals staged a human-chain protest on Tuesday demanding a stronger response to the tragedy from the authorities.

Army personnel subsequently joined the search operation while local Councillor Akash Kumar ordered the removal of waste from the canal.