There has been outrage after an image of an indigenous girl from the Khagrachari district circulated on Facebook where her parents are seen to carry her to the hospital after she was brutally raped by a group of nine men.
On Thursday night, nine robbers intruded into the victim’s house carrying sharp weapons. They tied up the mother and the stepfather of the victim and sexually assaulted her before leaving the house with looted cash and gold ornaments.
Seven out of the nine accused were later caught from Chittagong and different Upazila of Khagracchari district including Amin, Abdul Halim, Belal Hossen, Antor, Shahin Mia, Iqbal Hossen, and Abdur Rashid. The police are in an earnest pursuit to catch the remaining two.
Six of the accused criminals with existing criminal records have confessed to assaulting the girl and plundering valuables from her house. Their statement has been recorded by the court under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. On Wednesday hearing, the court condemned to put Amin on a seven-day remand to confess to his crimes.
The mother of the victim has stated that her daughter was suffering from mental illness after losing both her father and brother back in 2005. The horrid account that took place has been met by momentous protests where NGOs and students took to the streets demanding justice for her.
There has been growing concern over the rising incidents in rape and sexual assaults in Bangladesh. Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Associations (BNWLA) reported over 892 raped incidents that have taken place over the span of the last eight months. With over 192 reported rape attempts and 41 deaths from injuries after the rape and 9 from suicides, the alarming numbers amidst an ongoing pandemic have shocked the nation.
Source: ttp://www.askbd.org/…/violence-against-women-rape-jan…/
NGOs and Individuals have called for exemplary punishment for the perpetrators through a speedy trial process. They believe that the delay in justice is the reason; these gruesome crimes are taking place in large numbers.
The most vulnerable to sexual assaults are marginalized women and children and the ones with disabilities. Over the past few months, numeral accounts of indigenous women sexually assaulted around the hilly tracks have been reported.
The government and police officials need to work together and bring in a reformation to ensure proper law enforcement to stay behind the group of ethnic minorities in this country. We too need to raise our voice to stand in solidarity against these heinous crimes.
