Sexual abuse: Rubel discharged of allegations

A Dhaka court today discharged national cricketer Rubel Hossain from a case filed by film actress Naznin Akhtar Happy, who brought sexual abuse allegation against him.
Judge Tanjina Ismail of the Fifth Special Tribunal for Prevention of Women and Children Repression rejected Happy’s no-confidence petition and passed the order.
Happy on May 17 filed the no-confidence (naraji) petition against the probe report submitted by police in the case filed by her against the pacer of Bangladesh national team.
In no-confidence petition, Happy told the court that the police did not interrogate the eight witnesses including her brother, mother and sister before preparing the probe report.
So, she rejected the probe report and sought the tribunal's order for further investigation into the matter.
On April 6, police inspector Halima Khatun had submitted the final report on the case appealing to the court to relieve Rubel from the charge.
Rubel was sent to jail after his surrender before a Dhaka court. But later he secured bail from the higher court on January 11 on grounds of the 2015 World Cup.

THE ALLEGATION

Happy came into media focus after she filed a case on December 13 last year accusing Rubel of luring her into an affair with false promises of marriage.
However, the actress on the following day said she would withdraw the case if Rubel married her.
Meanwhile, a day after Happy filed the case, doctors at Dhaka Medical College conducted a forensic test on her. In its report submitted to Mirpur police on December 24, DMC stated that Happy was not raped recently.
Criticising the use of “recent”, Happy told The Daily Star that after “physical relations” for the last nine months, Rubel had refused to marry her on December 1, after which she had tried to reach a solution.
Later, Happy filed a writ petition with the HC asking its directives to remove Rubel Hossain from Bangladesh World Cup squad.
She also urged the court to order the government to confiscate Rubel's passport until the case was settled.
The HC rejected her pleas as since the petitioner's lawyer was absent in the court to place arguments on the petition.