Tania ‘Rape-murder’: Protests on, bus seized

Police seized the bus, whose driver and helper allegedly raped and killed nurse Shahinoor Akter Tania, from Gazipur’s Kapasia upazila on Thursday evening.

Khalilur Rahman Patwari, officer-in-charge of Bajitpur Police Station, said they found the vehicle in an abandoned state in Tok area and took it to the police station.

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) will check fitness and registration of the bus, the OC said, adding that forensic tests of the vehicle would be conducted if needed.

Meanwhile, different organisations held protests in various places of Kishoreganj yesterday, demanding justice for Tania, who was a nurse at Ibne Sina Hospital’s Kalyanpur branch in the capital. 

On her way to ancestral home in Katiadi upazila, the 24-year-old nurse was murdered after rape allegedly in the bus in Gojaria Jaamtoli area on Bhairab-Kishoreganj road on Monday night. 

Tania, daughter of 65-year-old farmer Gias Uddin in Baherchar village, was the youngest among six siblings.     

Katiadi Roktadan Samity, a blood donors’ organisation, held a human chain in Katiadi bus stand area yesterday. Some other organisations, Tania’s family members and relatives joined it. 

Bhorer Alo Sahitya Asor, a literary organisation, staged a protest in Kishoreganj town’s Kalibari area. Kishoreganj Homeopathic Forum and Acupressure Research Society also took part in it.  

Speakers told the programmes that all the accused in Tania murder must be arrested soon and they should be tried under the speedy trial act.

Demanding security for women in all public transport, they said if proper security was not ensured for women, country’s overall development would be hampered. 

Nurses Association of Kishoreganj organised a protest in front of Kishoreganj General Hospital.    

Besides, Tania’s qulkhwani was held at a local mosque on Thursday night. Seeking eternal peace of the departed soul, special prayers were also offered at different mosques after Juma prayers yesterday, said Tania’s uncle Nasir Uddin.

Police have already arrested five people, including bus driver Md Nuruzzaman, 39, and its helper Lalon Mia, 33, for their alleged involvement in the murder and rape.

They were placed on an eight-day remand on Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier, the victim’s father filed a murder and rape case with Bajitpur Police Station naming four, including the driver and helper, and some unknown people.  

Family and 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 around 3:00pm on Monday.

Tania had called her brother Sujan Mia after reaching Katiadi around 8:00pm and said she would reach shortly Pirijpur, 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, said Shafiqul Islam, OC (investigation) of Katiadi Police Station, quoting Tania’s family. 

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, 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.

During 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 later found evidence of gang rape and murder.