Police today pressed charge-sheet against nine persons including Swarnalata Paribahan bus owner and driver in a case filed for killing nurse Shahinoor Akter Tania after rape in Kishoreganj in May this year.

Police submitted the charge sheet with the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Al Mamun after three months into the incident, our Mymensingh correspondent reports quoting Officer-in-Charge (Investigation) of Bajitpur Police Station Md Sarwar Jahan, also investigation officer (IO) of the case.

The accused are: bus driver of Swarnalata Paribahan Nuruzzaman Nuru, 39, its helper Lalon Mia, 33, driver’s relative Borhan Uddin, 32, bus owner Al Mamun, 36, managing director of the Swarnalata Paribahan Parves Sarker Pavel, 40, bus counter manager Al Amin, 28, and bus countermen-Rafiqul Islam, 30, Khokon Mia, 38, and Bakul Mia alias Lengra Bakul, 50.

Of the nine accused, six were arrested earlier but Borhan, Al Amin and Parves Sarker Pavel are still at large, said the IO. Police drives are on to arrest the other accused, said the official.

Of the arrestees-Nuru, Lalon and Rafiqul Islam gave confessional statement under Section-164 before a Kishoreganj court regarding the killing of the young nurse after rape.

In the charge sheet, it was said that bus driver Nuru, helper Lalon and Borhan were involved with the rape while all the nine accused were involved in killing the nurse, said Masrukur Rahman Khaled, police superintendent of Kishoreganj.

Police said Tania boarded a Swarnalata Paribahan bus from the capital’s Mohakhali to go to her ancestral home in Baherchar village of Katiadi upazila on May 7 afternoon.

On her way home, Tania had called her brother Sujan Mia after reaching Katiadi around 8:00pm on the same day and said she would reach shortly Pirijpur in Bajitpur, from where her home is some 10 minutes’ rickshaw ride, said police and family.

After passengers got down at Katiadi and Ujanchar, Tania was the only passenger in the bus that headed towards Pirijpur in Bajitpur.

After waiting for over an hour and finding Tania’s phone switched off, family members rushed to Pirijpur bus stand, but did not find her there.

Around 11:00pm on the same day, the family members came to know from Katiadi Upazila Health Complex that Tania had died. Seeing her body, they alleged that she was killed after being raped.

Tania was raped inside the bus and she was hit in her head with a blunt object inside the bus and later she was thrown away from the bus to cover up the incident as a road accident, said the IO

But in primary interrogation, the bus driver and the helper claimed that the girl jumped off the running bus through a window and died. But they could not explain why she would do that, police said. 

The autopsy conducted on Tania the following day found evidence of gang rape and murder.

Tania, 24, daughter of Gias Uddin of village Baherchar in Lohajury union in Katiadi upazila of Kishoreganj was a nurse at Ibne Sina Hospital in Dhaka.