“I made a mistake by not killing her,” rape accused Majnu today confessed to a magistrate.

In his statement at the magistrate’s chamber, Majnu confessed that he alone raped the young woman, a student of Dhaka University, in the capital’s Kurmitola area.

Majnu told the magistrate that he waited in the area. When he saw the woman walking from Kurmitola bus stop, he grabbed her from behind, gagged her and took her to an isolated place nearby.

“I beat her mercilessly when she tried to escape… I raped her,” Majnu said in his confessional statement.

Before this, he had committed such offences several times, and did not consider this a serious crime, Majnu said.

Metropolitan Magistrate Tofazzal Hossain recorded his statement at his chamber after Detective Branch Inspector Abu Siddique, also the investigation officer of the case, produced him.

After recording his statement, the magistrate ordered to send him to Dhaka Keraniganj Central Jail.

In his statement, Majnu also said he strangled her, and at one stage she lost her consciousness.                 

After the rape, Majnu took her watch, money and cell phone.

On January 5, the DU student was sexually assaulted while she was walking from Kurmitola bus stop to a friend’s house in nearby Sheora area around 3:30pm. She had just gotten off a university bus.

After regaining consciousness around 10:00pm, she managed to make it to her friend’s house in Sheora. Later, her friend took her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

On January 6, the victim’s father filed a case with Cantonment Police Station accusing unknown people in this regard.

On January 8, the Rapid Action Battalion arrested Majnu from the capital’s Sheora area. He was handed over to the DB, which is now probing the case. The following day, he was placed on a seven-day remand.

Rab said the victim identified the arrestee as the rapist. The rape incident sparked a firestorm of protests and condemnations across the country.