UNB, Chattogram :
Out on a joyride with a male acquaintance, a 21-year-old woman was allegedly held hostage and raped by six men on a moving bus in Mirsarai upazila of Chattogram.
All the six men, including the bus driver and helper, have been arrested from different parts of the district, police said on Saturday.
The crime occurred in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday morning, said officer-in-charge of Mirsarai Police Station, Mujibul Rahman.
In her complaint to the police, the woman claimed that her male acquaintance took her out on Wednesday evening. The duo had boarded the bus from their native Sitakunda upazila.
However, when the bus reached the Hafiz Jute Mill area, the driver and the helper forced all passengers to get down. But they didn’t let the woman and her acquaintance to get off. Subsequently, the duo, along with the four others, took turns to rape her.
The woman’s ordeal didn’t end there. She was forcibly taken to a house in the upazila and raped over the next 24 hours, according to the complaint.
On her complaint, police lodged a case and arrested the six men from different parts of Sitakunda and Mirsarai upazilas, and Chattogram city on Friday night.
The arrestees have been identified as Ashraful Islam, 23, Shahadat Hossain, 19, Nizamuddin Rana, 20, Belal Hossain, 23, Mohammad Ismail, 31, of Sitakunda upazila and Mohammad Sagar Hossain, 22, of Mirsarai upazila.
The woman, a garment factory worker, was sent to Chattogram Medical College and Hospital for a medical examination.
SM Rashidul Haque, superintendent of District Police, said, “We have taken the case seriously and six people were arrested in this connection.”
Bangladesh’s rape epidemic
Sexual assaults on women continue unabated in Bangladesh, despite the government introducing death penalty for rapes last year.
A police headquarters report, released recently, said that 26,695 rape cases were filed across the country in the past five years.
Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK) data shows that 1,018 children were raped last year alone, but only 683 police cases had been filed. Also, 116 survivors were six years old or below.
Overall, 1,627 rape cases were reported last year and 53 of the women were killed by the perpetrators while 14 took their own lives, as per the data.
However, ASK’s data is just the tip of the iceberg, according to aid agencies, who report that most women are too afraid to report rape.
In October 2020, the country was rocked by protests after a woman was allegedly attacked and raped in Noakhali.
In November last year, Bangladesh introduced capital punishment for rape, following days of protests against sexual violence against women in several cities across the country.
But human rights organisations say the move will not solve the country’s rape crisis, as the survivors of the heinous crime are often stigmatised in the society.
