Tangail rape victim improving
A rape victim recounted her chilling tale before a judicial magistrate yesterday describing the trauma she went through in Savar in late November. The victim, 20, is a resident of Singair upazila of Manikganj and married to an expatriate living in the Middle East.
In the statement, she said her friend Liza picked her from her home and brought her to Savar on November 25 last year, to visit Liza’s sick aunt.
They went to a flat on the fourth floor of a building near Chhapra mosque in Bank Colony area of Savar where some young men awaited them.
As soon as Liza left, the victim understood that she had been trapped. A man she had never met pounced on her. She let out a scream at which another man named Shaheen beat her up and clapped his hands on her mouth.
Then, a man called Jahed alias Rasu raped her while the others recorded the footage of the harrowing incident. They even turned up the volume of the music to mask her screams, the victim added.
The culprits had threatened her of leaking the footage if she ever spoke of the incident, she told the magistrate.
Earlier on Friday, police arrested four of the culprits including Rayhan, Mohidur Rahman, Danesh and Liza and took them on remand.
Danesh was beaten up by the locals for stalking the victim a few months ago which is why he set his nephew Jahed to rape her,” the victim said.
Danesh even showed her mother the disturbing footage shortly after the incident.
Senior Judicial Magistrate Lubna Jahan recorded the victim’s statement and ordered to keep her under the custody of Bangladesh Jatiya Mahila Ainjibi Samity due to security reasons.
TANGAIL RAPE
The gang rape victim of Tangail is improving.
Doctors have asked police, visitors and relatives of the victim not to ask her any question on the heinous incident or discuss anything related to that in front of her.
“She can talk now. But forced-recalling can lead her to grave mental illness or shock,” said Bilkis Begum, member of the seven-person medical team for the victim, and also the coordinator of One-Stop Crisis Centre (OCC) at DMCH.
She said, “It is better to wait, perhaps a few more days, until she starts talking about the incident. Now, she needs counselling to regain a steady mind.”
Meanwhile, students, people of victim’s village and different non-government organisations brought out processions and formed human chains at different places in Tangail demanding exemplary punishment to the culprits. They gave memorandums to the Tangail Deputy Commissioner.
Four brutes raped the 15-year-old girl confining her to a room for five days, December 6 to 10 last year, in Madhupur of Tangail. Since, the girl lost her mental balance.
Police yesterday visited the place of the occurrence — house of Nuruzzaman at Bokarabaid village — and talked with locals.
Meanwhile, Chairman of National Human Rights Commission Mizanur Rahman yesterday went to see the victim in the hospital. There he urged the judiciary to come forward to ensure justice for rape victims.
He said the judiciary needed to prove that justice is there for the poor.
-With The Daily Star input
