Autistic boy who drowned in Brooklyn was ‘jumping on beds and laughing’ at Ikea before disappearing: family

The 9-year-old nonverbal autistic child who drowned in the waters off the Red Hook Ikea in Brooklyn early Thursday was under the care of a nanny and happily jumping on beds at the store before he disappeared, heartbroken family members said.

“He was playing around and the nanny was with him,” Abida Sultana recalled from her Bensonhurst home just 14 hours after her son Hasbul Nehan’s body was found on the Erie Basin shoreline. “It was for one moment that I called the nanny for something and within minutes we started looking for him when I could not see him around.”

Before he disappeared, Hasbul was “jumping on the beds and was laughing,” his 6-year-old sister Miriyamah recalled.

Hasbul was reported missing around 10 p.m. Wednesday, cops said. Police divers recovered his body just after 12:30 a.m. Thursday after a frantic search of the waterfront.

Sultana, Hasbul, his nanny and two younger sisters went to the Red Hook Ikea because of the Beard St. big-box store’s waterfront views, his heartbroken mother said.

“Hasbul loved the ocean and the water,” she said, cradling the orange Crocs her son wore the day he died. Cops searching for Hasbul found one of the orange Crocs on the shore and the other in the water before the boy was found.

After finding the child, first responders rushed Hasbul to NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital but he could not be saved.

Divers went into the water at 10:13 p.m. and drones searched from above, according to sources. Police also deployed canine, harbor and aviation units.

Sultana said her family first realized Hasbul was missing around 8:30 p.m., more than an hour and a half before cops were called.

They asked Ikea workers to view store surveillance footage to find where Hasbul went but managers would only let the cops see it, she said.

When officers arrived, the surveillance footage showed the boy walking out of the store toward the water, according to cops.

“If the cops would have looked into water in time, my child could have been saved,” the mom said.

Wednesday’s tragedy left Sultana’s family shattered.

“I didn’t think this tragedy would happen to him,” Hasbul’s older brother Dehan Nehan said. “I had so much fun with him. His autism didnt matter to us.”

“It was not a burden,” Dehan, 16, said about his younger brother’s condition. “We loved him.”