Rape incidents turn alarming in Dhaka

Prothom Alo illustration
Prothom Alo illustration

Rape has increased alarmingly in Dhaka and women have no security either in day or night.

Official records show 498 cases have been filed on charges of rape and gang-rape with 50 police stations in Dhaka metropolitan area in 2019. Of them, gang rape cases are 37.

Police have submitted investigation reports of 402 cases to the court in Dhaka, according to the record of Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM).

Analysing documents of 44 cases of rape and gang rape in the last year, it was found that a large number of women were victims of rape and gang rape at night in different places of Dhaka metropolitan area.

Police have arrested most of the suspects in these incidents.

On 5 January, a Dhaka University female student was raped at Kurmitola area in the capital while she was going to her friend’s house. The suspect, Majnu, was arrested in connection with the incident.

Some 856 cases were filed for gang rape between 2002 and till October of 2016 in Dhaka metropolitan and district, Prothom Alo investigations found. During the period, some 4,585 cases were filed for rape.

Most of the cases filed under Women and Children Repression Prevention Act are related to rape incidents.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, former inspector general of police Nurul Huda said ethics has to be increased in the society to decrease rape and gang rape incidents.

Punishment of those involved in these incidents has to be ensured.

Several rape incidents in Dhaka metropolitan area:

Prothom Alo collected documents of 14 cases of 37 gang rapes in Dhaka metropolitan area in 2019.

A woman, 22, was gang raped in Signboard area of the capital on 7 May last year. Four persons raped the woman in a bus. Jatrabari police station arrested four suspects in connection with the incident.

Jatrabari police inspector and also investigation officer in the case, Shahinur Rahman, said the charge sheet was submitted to the court after the investigation.

The investigation found that the accused had raped the woman. All the accused are transport workers. One of them is driver.

Another girl, 21, was gang raped in a washroom at Gabtoli Bus Terminal in the capital on 23 August.

Within two days into the incident, police detained four suspects and sent them to the court in Dhaka. In this connection, charge sheets were submitted to a Dhaka court.

A female garments worker, 19, living in Shah Ali police station area in the capital, was returning home from work along the embankment via Diabari intersection in Mirpur at 10pm on 25 August.

Four youths intercepted her when she reached Royal City gate 1 around 10pm. The youths took her to the bank of a nearby river and raped her.

Shah Ali police arrested two suspects in this connection and they are now in jail.

Speaking to Prothom Alo, a lawyer at the One Stop Crisis Centre of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Fahmida Akhtar, said she talks to rape victims every day.

Cases have been filed on charges of rape every day in Dhaka, she said adding the incidents of rape were not decreasing.

A rape victim, 35, living in Badda of the capital, was raped by four persons near Pachkhola bridge at Badda while she was returning home 10pm on 14 September 2019.

Badda police arrested two suspects in this connection.

Badda police station inspector and also investigation officer in the case, Muhammad Abdur Razzak, submitting the report to the court said the suspects including Oli Ullah and Fanir Hossain took the woman to nearby bushes and raped her there when the woman reached Makan city gate at Badda.

Former adviser to the caretaker government Sultana Kamal told Prothom Alo that incidents of rape doubled across the country including Dhaka metropolitan area.

Accountability of all involved in investigation and trial process has to be ensured after filing cases on charges of repression of women and children.

Those found guilty in the rape incidents must be punished, she said.

*This report has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam.