"My mother always chains me either in the bathroom or to the window grills or to the bed-stands when she goes out of the house, locking me for hours," 9-year-old Abir told newsmen after his rescue.

The boy was rescued after locals complained about the incident to the Shyampur unit of a rights organisation, the Bureau of Human Rights Bangladesh (BHRB), who took the matter to the police.

BHRH Sunday night filed a general diary (GD) with Shyampur police, who following the lead unchained the boy from the ground floor at 419 Nurpur of Dhania under the police station.

The washroom where police found the boy was only four feet by four feet. "It was dark, damp and stinky," Advocate Shajahan of BHRB described to The Daily Star Sunday night. "The washroom was so small that he had to stand all the time there," he added.

Abir said he lived there with his mother, Swapna Chowdhury, who, the locals said, claimed her profession alternatively as a journalist, a politician or sometimes an advocate. Abir also told newsmen that his father, Kabir, used to come to the house sometimes.

Rescuers at first could not get into the house as it was locked from the outside, and yelling through the ventilator they learnt that the boy was in the washroom.

The policemen then broke into the house and found Abir alone. Hiring an ironsmith, police released the left hand of the boy from the wall and brought him to the police station.

His mother only left some muri in a small bowl and some water in a bottle - his only meal for the whole day. As a result, he was suffering from malnutrition.

"Even if she was the mother of the child, she cannot do this to the boy. It is a violation of rights by any means," Advocate Shajahan told The Daily Star.

Police picked up Swapna at around 11:00pm Sunday night from the house when she reached home. "We still could not learn what she does or the whereabouts of her claimed husband," Officer-in-Charge of Shyampur Police Station told The Daily Star at zero-hours yesterday.

Yesterday police produced the boy to the court, requesting it to send him to safe custody. The boy's mother was also produced before the court under section 54 of the criminal procedure code.