A Tangail court yesterday awarded four transport workers with life imprisonment for raping a garment worker in a moving bus in the district’s Dhanbari upazila in 2016.

Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal Judge Khaleda Yasmin passed the order and fined the convicts Tk 1 lakh each.

The convicts are: Habibur Rahman Nayan, 28, Rezaul Karim Jewel, 38, Md Khalek Bhutto, 23, and Md Ashraf, 26, all hailing from Dhanbari upazila.

Absconding supervisor Rezaul Karim Jewel. Photo: Collected

Ataur Rahman Azad, general secretary of Bangladesh Manobadhikar Bastobayon Sangstha, said Nayan, Khalek and Ashraf were present at the court when the verdict was delivered and Rezaul was tried in absentia.

The court heard nine witnesses including plaintiff, police, doctor and magistrate before delivering the verdict.

The victim’s husband filed a case with Dhanbari Police Station on April 2 last year, a day after the incident happened. Later on April 6, the convicts surrendered before a magistrate court and has been in jail since then.

Sub-Inspector Khan Mostofa Hasan, investigation officer of the case, submitted a charge sheet to the judicial magistrate’s court in Tangail on May 11 in connection with the case.