Published: 12:14 AM, 04 November 2026
Neither Child's Play Nor Adult Court
Kazi Sajjatul Haque
On September 18, a 13-year-old schoolboy in Cumilla, Ishayat Shahriar Oprotim, was allegedly struck on the head with a bamboo stick after he resisted a phone snatcher. A charge sheet filed on October 20 names four accused. Two of them, aged 15 and 16, are juveniles in the eyes of the law.
Bangladesh's law already lets some children face adult-length punishment. What it lacks is a reasoned test for when.
Four days later in Baridhara, a worker was killed when a car mounted a footpath. CCTV later showed a teenager leaving the driver's side, although the case had named a 44-year-old as driver. The boy, 17, has been refused bail twice. A Tk 9 lakh settlement has been reached with the victim's family.
The two cases stir opposite anxieties: that the law is too soft on violent children, and that it bends too easily for privileged ones. Both feed the question now dominating public debate. Should a child accused of a serious crime be tried like an adult?
The Cumilla killing set off a police drive. Police detained 624 suspected child gang members in Cumilla, and a police report counts at least 385 teen gangs nationwide. The operation later expanded in phases to other districts, with most minors released to their guardians.
Police say the Children Act 2013 ties their hands. Senior officers say under-18 years olds cannot be handled through mobile courts, regular courts or jail the way adults are. The demand to change this is not new. In about 2022, a minister announced plans to lower the legal age of a child. However, there is no sign that it went further.
The debate often assumes a clean line: child on one side, adult on the other. The Act draws no such line.
Under the Children Act, everyone up to 18 is a child (section 4), and a Children's Court has exclusive jurisdiction (section 17). Section 15 bars joint charge-sheets of children with adults, "notwithstanding" section 239 of the CrPC, so the child and his adult co-accused are tried separately.
But the Act does not guarantee gentleness. Section 33 bars death, life imprisonment and imprisonment for a child, yet its proviso allows imprisonment, up to the offence's maximum, for a serious offence or for a child found "unruly or depraved." Under section 34(3), a child charged with murder or similar crimes who turns 18 during trial or detention is sent to jail, in a separate ward, with the court's approval. Bangladesh already has a hybrid system.
The High Court Division has set a limit on that power. In the case of Fahima Nasrin v Government of Bangladesh, it held that a trial judge cannot imprison a child without recording a clear opinion that other measures are insufficient or that the child is too unruly or depraved.
The Children's Court has the powers of a Court of Session, and the CrPC applies to it so far as possible (sections 18 and 42 of the Act).
On procedure, Chapter XXIII requires a Public Prosecutor to run the case (section 265A) and provides for discharge (265C), framing of charge (265D) and conviction on a guilty plea (265E). A child accused of murder meets the same skeleton as an adult. Section 342 lets the court question the accused generally once the prosecution witnesses have been heard.
On bail, section 497(1) refuses bail where there are reasonable grounds to believe the accused is guilty of an offence punishable with death or life. Its proviso protects only those under sixteen. A 17-year-old falls outside it. The Act fills that gap, since the Children's Court may grant bail "notwithstanding" the CrPC and must record reasons for any refusal (section 29).
On settlements, section 345 allows compromise only for listed offences. The Road Transport Act 2018 makes some offences compoundable, but not sections 98 and 105, the ones invoked at Baridhara. A state prosecutor has said the case cannot be ended by private agreement. No cheque, however large, can buy the end of a case.
Finally, section 439 preserves the High Court Division's revisional power, which sits beside the Act's 60-day appeal (section 41).
Our neighboring country, India chose a middle path in 2015. Children aged 16 to 18 accused of heinous offences can be tried as adults after an assessment. This year, its Supreme Court held that murder counts as a heinous offence. It also ruled, in Sagar v State of Haryana, that a Children's Court must first pass a reasoned order before ordering an adult trial, and that skipping this step vitiates the entire trial.
India's model is contested, and Bangladesh need not copy it. But India's procedural lesson travels well. The decision to treat a child as an adult is made openly, on the record and open to review.
The real choice before Bangladesh is not child or adult. It is whether such decisions will be made on stated criteria by a judge who has weighed the child's age, maturity, role in the offence and gang links. Today, section 34(3) can send a child to jail as a result of a birthday, with no assessment of the child at all. A written, reasoned order before the section 33 proviso or section 34(3) would serve victims' families and children better than a blunt age line. It would also need properly resourced Children's Courts, probation officers and detention centres, which neither side of this debate has yet demanded loudly enough.
Kazi Sajjatul Haque studies
Law in Bangladesh University
of Professionals (BUP), Mirpur Cantonment, Dhaka.
