Girl ‘raped’ in running bus

A female garment worker was raped in a running bus in Tangail yesterday. It comes two days after two sisters, both in their teens, were allegedly gang-raped in Laxmipur on Tuesday, police said.

The garment worker, aged around 23, was returning from a relative's in Dhanbari upazila of Tangail to her place in Gazipur on a Binimoy Paribahan bus in the early morning, police said quoting the victim.

She was the only passenger in the bus that had four staff on board, including the driver, reports our Tangail correspondent.

Around 6:00am, when the bus was speeding through the Tangail-Mymensingh Road in Madhupur upazila, the transport workers locked the gate and windows.

They also tied her hands and legs and gagged her. Three of the bus staff then took turns to rape the woman before forcing her out of the bus in a desolate place by the road.

She was later given treatment at Tangail Medical College Hospital, police said.

Three of the four transport staff were held following the incident, said Nazmul Haque Bhuiyan, officer-in-charge of Tangail Model Police Station.

In Laxmipur, the two sisters, aged 16 and 14, called outside their house by a neighbour named Khokon around 9:00pm on Tuesday, said police, citing the victims' family.

Once they came outside, Khokon and three others gagged and dragged the girls to an abandoned house nearby and raped them.

The news broke only after the victims' mother yesterday filed a case with Komolnagar Police Station against Khokon, his cousin Siraj, and their friends Yousuf and Abdul Karim.

About the delay in filing the case, police said the locals first tried to settle the matter on their own.

None of the accused was arrested yet, said Kabir Ahmed, officer-in-charge of the police station.