Nine-year-old Mim Akhter sits quietly at the doorway of her family’s small home in an Ashrayan project at Raozan upazila of Chattogram. In her lap rests a plastic bucket filled with her three-year-old brother Misbah’s clothes. She picks out two tiny pairs of shoes from the scattered pile. Misbah will never wear them again.

On Wednesday afternoon around 4:30pm, Misbah was playing outside when he slipped into a deep, narrow tube-well pit near their house.

Mim was next to him. As he fell into the nearly 30-ft hole, she managed to grab his hand and held on for several minutes.

But her grip gave way.

“When I reached inside the hole, he held my hand for a while,” Mim says in a trembling voice.

“I kept shouting for help. But I couldn’t save my brother.”

Tears keep trickling, she stops trembling -- exhausted from crying for hours.

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Mim, a class three student, says Misbah often wanted to go to school with her.

“He was too small, so I couldn’t take him,” she says softly. “I thought I would take him next year.”

This correspondent saw that the uncovered pit was just 20 to 25 feet from the house and five feet away from a tube-well used by the family and neighbours.

Overgrown weeds had concealed the pit for years. After clearing the bushes only recently, it became exposed, turning into a deadly trap for unsuspecting playful children.

Firefighters recovered Misbah after a four-hour rescue operation around 8:30pm.

Oxygen was pumped into the pit during the effort, but doctors later declared the child dead.

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Inside the small home, allotted under the Ashrayan project, silence hangs heavy. The father, Saiful Alam, a day labourer, is in tears in one room. In the other room, neighbours try to console Misbah’s mother.

The family of four used to sleep in the same room.

“I thought having a daughter and a son was enough. No matter how poor we are, I wanted to educate them both.”

Neighbour Ismail Hossain says the incident should not be dismissed as an accident. “These houses and tube-wells were built under a government project. Leaving an abandoned pit open like this is criminal negligence. Those responsible must be identified and held accountable.”

According to Chattogram district administration, more than a thousand landless families have received houses under the Ashrayan project.

Misbah’s family moved there in mid-2023.

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Raozan Upazila Nirbahi Officer SM Rahatul Islam told The Daily Star that a three-member investigation committee, headed by Upazila Engineer Abul Kalam, has been formed to determine responsibility.

The committee has been asked to submit its report within seven working days. “If negligence is found, action will be taken,” he said.

Back at the house, Mim clutches the bucket with her brother’s clothes. Gone is the simple dream of walking to school together.