The prison authorities faced problems for Thursday when they had received 18 transsexuals arrested in an extortion case on Wednesday.
A metropolitan magistrate’s court in Dhaka sent the transsexuals, mostly dressed in saris, to the Dhaka central jail on Thursday afternoon in the case the managing director of Basic Shirt Limited, Md Humayun Kabir, of Senpara Parbata in the capital had filed.
On receiving them, jail officials had been in a dilemma till the night about where to put them up — in the female ward of the central or isolated, an official told New Age.
‘We could not confirm whether they were transsexuals. They looked like male in the disguise of female. So, if we put them in the female ward, there could be a possibility for sexual abuse,’ another official told New Age.
The authorities at night finally sent them to the Kashimpur jail for and put them up separately in the female ward.
An official at the Kashimpur jail told New Age Friday, ‘They are put in groups of three in six small cells separately from the female ward.’
The law enforcers in the court also had faced a hassle in handling the matter. The arrested shouted slogans for their bail and made obscene gestures in protest at their arrest.
The metropolitan magistrate, MA Salam, posted for Sunday the hearing in the petition the defence counsel Khandaker Mohibul Hasan filed seeking their bail.
On information of their arrest, other transsexuals gathered in front of the chief metropolitan magistrate’s court on Thursday to protest at the arrest.
The court custody officer-in-charge, Md Murad Hossain, said that they had faced hassles in handling them.
Witnesses said that on getting down from the prison van, the transsexuals started dancing and shouting slogans.
They were taken tot the court premises and were not produced before the magistrate to head off any unwarranted situation.
After the arrest, the Mirpur police officer-in-charge, Salauddin Khan, told New Age, ‘On receiving allegations of their extorting money from an apparel factory owner, I sought permission from my seniors to take action against them. They were hesitant at first.’
Female workers of the factory captured them and a group of female police arrested them as they demanded money before Eid-ul-Fitr.
The police estimated that several thousand transsexuals were living in the capital and most of them were involved in criminal activities for lack of rehabilitation.
-With New Age input
