A mentally challenged woman raped on Tangail bus

A mentally challenged woman has been raped inside a bus in Tangail's Bhuapur upazila, police said.

The incident reminds one of the rape and murder of law student Rupa Khatun inside a moving bus in the district a year ago.

Mosharraf Hossain, officer-in-charge of Bangabandhu Bridge East Police Station, said the 28-year-old woman, who could only tell her name and that she was from Kushtia, boarded a local bus at Tangail Bus Stand around 10:00pm Thursday.

By the time the vehicle reached its last stop in Pathaikandi on the eastern side of Bangabandhu Bridge, all the passengers, except the woman, got down.

Around 11:45pm, the driver, Alam Khandaker, 45, stopped the bus in the area and raped the woman inside the vehicle, the OC said, adding that the driver's helper Nazmul, 22, stood guard outside.

A night guard of a local market heard the woman's screams and informed a patrol team from Bangabandhu Bridge East Police Station about the matter. The law enforcers rescued the woman and arrested the helper from near the scene.

The driver, however, managed to flee, Mosharraf said.

On Friday, police admitted the woman to Tangail General Hospital where she underwent medical tests. The reports were not available till last night.

The same day, Sub-Inspector Nure Alam filed a case under the Women and Children Repression Act with the police station. According to the case statement, Alam raped the woman while Nazmul abetted him.

Nazmul was produced before a Tangail court where he gave a confessional statement. After recording the statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), Senior Judicial Magistrate Md Ashikuzzaman sent him to jail, the OC said.

Police seized the bus and were trying to arrest the driver, he added.

Yesterday, the woman was moved to a government shelter home in Gazipur as per a directive from a Tangail court.

Kabirul Haque, sub-inspector of the police station, said the court came up with the directive after they filed a prayer in this regard.

Quoting accused Nazmul, the SI said the woman was roaming in Tangail Bus Stand area on Thursday night and she got onto the bus being asked by the driver and the helper. Both the accused are from Bhuapur upazila of Tangail.

Talking to this correspondent last night, Kabirul also said they came to know from Kushtia police that the woman's family lives in the district's Mirpur upazila. The family members were on their way to Gazipur to meet her, he added.

On August 25 last year, Rupa, 27, was raped and killed on a bus heading for Mymensingh by three assistants of the driver. Her body was thrown out of the vehicle in an empty forest area on Tangail-Mymensingh road.

A Tangail court sentenced the trio -- Mohammad Shamim, 26, Akram, 35, and Jahangir, 20 -- to death over the incident that caused an outcry. The driver, Habib Miah, 45, was given the same punishment for abetting the three.

In April, 2016, transport workers had raped a female garment worker, aged around 23, on another moving bus on the Tangail-Mymensingh Road in Madhupur upazila of Tangail.