Failing to rape, driver kills woman in bus

A woman was killed in a bus by its driver after he failed to rape her in Dhaka’s Dhamrai upazila on Friday, said police.

The victim was identified as Mamata, 19, a worker of a ceramic factory in the upazila.

Police arrested Firoz Elahi Sohail, 31, the driver of the bus, which belongs to the same factory, hours after recovering the body from beside a road.

During primary interrogation, Firoz confessed to attempting to rape before killing her, said police.

Depok Chandra Saha, officer-in-charge of Dhamrai Police Station, said the victim boarded the bus, meant for carrying factory workers, around 4:30am to reach her workplace, which is around three kilometers from her house.

She was the first passenger. At one point, Firoz stopped the bus beside a road and attempted to rape her, the OC said, quoting the arrestee.

As the girl bit at his hand to escape, Firoz strangled her to death and dumped her body by the road, the OC said, adding that the body bore injury marks.

Depok said upon filing of a general diary by the victim’s brother over her going missing, police recovered the body from a bush beside the road in Kawalipara area and sent it to Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College for autopsy.

The autopsy would confirm the cause of death and whether she was raped before being killed, the OC told our Savar correspondent.

Police seized the bus and a murder case was filed in this regard.

MAN ARRESTED FOR RAPING TWO GIRLS

Police on Friday night arrested the manager of a mess on charge of raping two female boarders in the city’s Rampura area recently.

A Dhaka Court yesterday sent GM Mushfiqul Alam, 38, to jail after police produced him before it, Akhtaruzzaman Munshi, sub-inspector of Rampura Police Station, told The Daily Star yesterday. 

Both the victims, aged 19 and 18, were working girls and used to share a flat in a mess in Rampura area.

The SI said the accused used to run several messes in adjacent buildings but the dining was common. As the 19-year-old victim was alone in her room on Thursday evening, the accused raped her and warned her not to disclose it to anyone. 

He also raped her roommate on December 25 and January 1. But she kept silent in fear of social humiliation and reprisal by the rapist, the SI said. 

The victims were sent to the one-stop crisis centre at Dhaka Medical College Hospital after they filed two separate cases against Mushfique on Friday night, police said.

According to a case forwarding submitted to court by the SI, the accused is a serial rapist, who has been running messes for about nine years. He maintains good relations with female mess members and rape them whenever he gets a chance.

Many of the victims kept mum in fear or considering the social stigma. After the two rape victims came forward, many other girls lodged verbal complaints against him, the SI said in the forwarding.

ACCUSED ARRESTED OVER    GANG-RAPE

Meanwhile, Rab yesterday arrested another accused in the case filed over the gang-rape of a 13-year-old girl in Keraniganj.

Md Ratan, 18, from Shariatpur, was arrested in Savar, said Maj Mohammad Anisujjaman, a company commander of Rab-10.

Kamrangirchar police arrested five others, including a female friend of the victim, on Friday, hours after the girl was raped at an under-construction building on Thursday night.

Three of them -- Hasan, Sifat, Sabuj -- gave confessional statements before magistrates, while another accused, Rony, was placed on a one-day remand.

The victim’s friend was sent to Gazipur Correction Centre as she was underaged.

GANG-RAPE IN N’GANJ

A class-nine student was kidnapped by three men on Thursday and was raped until she was released yesteray morning.

Police arrested two youths -- Towsib Mia, 22, and his friend Afzal Hossain, 24 -- after the girl’s mother filed a case with Rupganj Police Station yesterday, said Rafiqul Haque, inspector (operations) of the station.

The police officer said Towsib borrowed Tk 500 from the victim a couple of days ago. As the victim was on her way home after taking the money back from Towsib on Thursday, the two men, along with their accomplice Abu Sufian, dragged her into a microbus and took her to a house in Rupshi area.

The accused confined the girl there for two days and raped her, police said quoting the case statement.

As the girl fainted, the accused dropped her in Mouchak area yesterday morning. On information, the family members rushed there and took her to hospital.

Rafiqul said the arrestees during primary interrrogation confessed to raping the girl. He also said they were trying to arrest Sufian.