The victim, Mohammad Yasin, is now under treatment at One-stop Crisis Centre (OCC) at Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).

He bears marks of injury all over his body, old and new, apparently due to torture for long.

Rahima Begum, lecturer of Bangla at Tejgaon Government College and wife of a deputy secretary at the establishment ministry, and their son Nafid Hasan, a student of class eight at Motijheel Government School, were kept at Motijheel Police Station till the filing of this report at about 7:00pm.

Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Motijheel Police Station AKM Rafiqul Islam said they would file a case only after doctors confirmed the boy was tortured.

The incident came to light as some drivers rescued the boy from the residence of the deputy secretary at Railway Officers' Colony at Shajahanpur at around 1:30pm yesterday.

"We heard a boy crying often at the house for a long time. Being suspicious about it, we peeped through the window today (Saturday), saw the boy crying in a room and brought him out of the house," said Salamat, one of the drivers.

"But Nafid took him back. Hearing his scream again, we entered the house and brought him out," he added.

The drivers took the boy to Motijheel Police Station, where he narrated the brutal torture on him. Police later took him to the DMCH.

Talking to reporters at the police station, Rahima denied torture on the domestic help, whom she brought from her village home at Bolakair in Gopalganj in December last year.

She attributed to some 'unknown disease' the old and new marks of injury in the boy's hands, legs, forehead and other parts of body. "I used to take care of him as one of my sons and none of my two sons ever tortured him," she claimed.

Still looking terrified in his hospital bed, Yasin said, "Nafid used to beat me whenever I was alone in the house. He pressed a hot iron rod on my buttocks about one and a half months ago."

About a red mark in his left eye, Yasin said it was caused as Nafid gave a blow on his eye for failing to wake him up in the morning a few months ago.

Dr Bipul Krishna Chandra, in-charge of the OCC, told reporters, "The marks on the boy's body are due to torture for a long time. He was tortured both physically and mentally."

Rahima's husband Ahsan Sarfun Nur declined to say anything. "The OC (Rafiqul Islam) has asked me not to talk to newsmen."