Naba Kumar Das, assistant police superintendent (ASP) of CID, submitted the charge sheet on February 28 to a Chuadanga magistrate court after 30 days of investigation.

The accused police are camp in-charge Kuddus, Habildar Rokunuddin, constables Harun, Sakil and Hrunur Rashid. Nine other accused were exempted from the charge.

According to the charge sheet, the accused picked up a 25-year-old housewife from Bishnupur village while the woman was waiting for a rickshaw to return home from Chuadanga town at about 8pm. They took her to Gokulkhali police camp and gang raped her.

Following the gang rape, Kuddus and Rokunuddin took the victim to the house of one Farhad, who lives in the area, and asked him to send her to the hospital. Before leaving, the policemen warned the victim against reporting the incident.

Human rights organisations from Dhaka and Kushtia formed a joint cell and launched a movement demanding a proper probe into the incident as well as the immediate arrest of the rapists.

Police then formed a probe body headed by Additional Police Superintendent of Chuadanga Awlad Hossain. The police authority suspended all 14 police of the camp and arrested five.

The human rights organisations, however, rejected the police probe report, calling it a fabrication that overlooked the true incidents as the report said the woman had not been raped at all. They demanded a fresh investigation by a judicial committee and started a countrywide campaign on the issue.

The victim, meanwhile, filed a case against 14 police of the camp after fresh medical tests at Khulna Medical College Hospital produced evidence of rape. Police arrested all 14 and sent them to jail, but nine later received bail.

On December 27, a Chuadanga magistrate court handed the woman over to the safe custody of Mahila Parishad, a Dhaka-based woman rights protection organisation, following an appeal by the organisation. The woman is now being treated there.