Majnu who was arrested in connection with the rape of a Dhaka University student has been placed on a seven-day remand by a Dhaka court.

The order was passed by the court of Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Md Sarafuzzaman Ansary after Detective Branch (DB) of Police produced the accused before the court today.

DB Inspector Abu Siddique, also investigation officer (IO) of the case, had sought a 10-day remand for lone suspect Majnu but the court granted seven days after hearing his prayer.

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) arrested Majnu from Shewra area in Dhaka yesterday. Later, the elite force handed him to the detectives.

A second-year student of Dhaka University said she was raped and tortured in the capital’s Kurmitola area on the night of January 5. She was walking from Kurmitola bus stop to a friend’s house in a nearby area around 7:30pm on that night.

Soon after getting down from the university bus, someone grabbed her from behind, gagged her and took her to an isolated place nearby where she was tortured and raped.

After arresting the suspect, Rab said at a briefing that tried to kill the Dhaka University student after raping her.  

The law enforcers also said the arrestee, a 30-year-old drug addict, had earlier raped several female beggars and intellectually challenged women near the same place.

“Majnu is a mugger, a vagabond and a serial rapist … He raped his victims whenever he got a chance while mugging them,” Rab sources said.

Rab also claimed that Majnu admitted during primary interrogation that he alone raped the DU student and tortured her for about three hours.

The rape incident sparked a firestorm of protests and condemnations across the country. The victim’s fellow students at Dhaka University took to the streets, demanding the rapist’s immediate arrest. They were later joined in by students in other districts.