‘Rape evidence on Jannati’s body’

Forensic experts have found evidence of rape during the autopsy of a 12-year-old housemaid, Jannati Akter, who recently died mysteriously in her workplace in Dhaka’s Mohammadpur.

Jannati had evidence of rape and multiple injury marks on her body, said a member of Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital’s forensic medicine department who conducted the autopsy on Friday.

She was beaten to death, he added.

On 24 October, Jannati’s father Janu Mollah said he was informed that Jannati was sick and he should come immediately to see her. When he reached Dhaka from his home in Bogura’s Gabtoli, he found her daughter dead at SSMCH.

Officer-in-charge of Mohammadpur police station GG Biswas said they had received a call from Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College Hospital on 24 October night. They were told that a couple had brought the body of a child.

Jannati had been working in the residence of Bangladesh Water Development Board’s executive engineer Sayeed Ahmed for four years.

Meanwhile, Sayeed’s wife Roksana Parvin, who confessed her involvement in the death of Jannati on 25 October, is arrested and now in police custody. Sayeed, however, has been on the run since the incident.

Jannati’s father filed a murder case with Mohammadpur police station in this regard.

Abdul Alim, investigation officer of the case, told Prothom Alo that that police were trying to arrest Sayeed.

Jannati’s maternal uncle, Saju Mandal, told Prothom Alo that his niece was tortured to death. “Police let Sayeed flee from the arrest,” he alleged.