‘I'm the father of a rape victim, of a dismembered body—am I to blame?’
“I am the father of a rape victim, the father of a dismembered body. But I did not want to be known this way. I wanted to remain a proud father,” said the tearful father of an eight-year-old girl who was raped and brutally murdered in Pallabi area of the capital.
He made these remarks today, Saturday while speaking at a roundtable titled 'Child Abuse in Bangladesh and the Way Forward' at the Shaheed Abu Sayeed Convention Centre in the capital.
The event was organised by the ‘Legal Assistance Cell for Oppressed Women and Children’, an initiative formed by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
The father of the child from Pallabi asked, “I want to know—who will take responsibility for this? Is this the result of my negligence, society's negligence, or the negligence of the state? Who will take responsibility for my precious little girl, who lies in pieces today? Am I to blame for her fate, or is someone else?”
“I do not want to be known as the father of a rape victim. I wanted to be a proud father. Give me back that identity. Give me back that dignity,” he pleaded, folding his hands before everyone at the roundtable.
The grieving father added, “If you cannot do that, what can you do then? Ensure at least a social system where no parent will ever lose their child like this again. Where no other parents will be left to weep for the rest of their lives, forced to live as walking corpses.”
He further shared that even 13 days after the incident, his wife remains severely traumatised. “My wife doesn't know where she is going or what she is saying. She needs constant supervision. Only God knows if she will ever recover,” he said, while also expressing deep concern for his elder daughter.
The father expressed anxiety not just for his own daughters, but for all children, recounting a recent incident. He mentioned that a five-year-old girl visited his home yesterday and had already learned the word 'rape'—something a child of her age should have no knowledge of.
The young girl is now too terrified to go to the toilet alone and refuses to leave her mother's side. “This is the psychological state of children in Bangladesh today,” said the father. He demanded exemplary justice for his daughter’s murder.
The roundtable was attended by state minister for social welfare Farzana Sharmin, member of parliament for reserved women's seats Nipun Roy Chowdhury, president of National Press Club Hassan Hafiz, head of the forensic medicine department at Dhaka Medical College Hospital Professor Kazi Golam Mukhlesur Rahman, and lawyer Rashna Imam, among others.
The session was moderated by the BNP's health affairs secretary, Md Rafiqul Islam.
On 19 May, the dismembered body of the child who fell victim to rape was recovered from a flat on a building in Pallabi area of Dhaka. Following the incident, the accused, Sohel—a resident of the flat—escaped by breaking the window grill of the flat’s toilet.
His wife was detained from the residence immediately, and Sohel was arrested later that evening from Fatullah in Narayanganj. The child's father subsequently filed a case at Pallabi Police Station.
The date for the verdict in the case has been scheduled just 19 days after the brutal rape and murder of the child. The court has set 7 June to deliver the judgement.
Note: In compliance with the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act and the editorial policy of Prothom Alo, the names and identities of the child and her father have been withheld in this report.