Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
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Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

In My View

Verdict comes after 17 years in rape and murder case of a sixth-grader

Published : Friday, 21 October, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 728
Syed Badiuzzaman
A Bangladesh court not far from the nation's capital took almost two decades to give its verdict in a gang rape and murder case exhibiting the painfully slow process of delivering justice even in serious sex crime litigation in the country. The gruesome incident happened s far back as in 2005 but a court in Narayanganj handed down its judgement this past Tuesday after 17 long years.

The digital edition of the Daily Observer reported that a schoolgirl was brutally gang raped and then murdered by her rapists in Fatullah but the Narayanganj court took more than the lifetime of the poor girl to deliver its long-awaited verdict in the almost forgotten case. The unusual delay in dispensing justice in this rape and murder case has certainly been mentally agonizing as well as socially embarrassing to the family of the victim.

Afsana Akter Nipa was then just a sixth-grader at Muslim Nagar KM School in Narayanganj's Fatulla. The 11-year-old went missing on May 3, 2005 from her aunt's house and police found her body in a paddy field close to the area the next day. Three sex offenders who are now convicted rapists and killers first raped the little girl and then strangled her to death. Two other persons were also involved in the ugly incident. The court awarded death penalty to four of them and life-term to the fifth accused.

But "Justice delayed is justice denied." This is an old saying and every judge regardless of the country he or she belongs to should be well aware of this. Yet, why did the Narayanganj court take such a long time to deliver its judgement after a savage crime of gang rape and murder of the schoolgirl? What prevented the court from speeding up the trial of this brutal rape and murder case of the little girl of Fatullah and delivering its verdict within a reasonable amount of time if not quicker?

We demand an answer from the court. In fact, the nation seeks a clear and convincing explanation of reasons behind the long delay. The slow process in trying the rape and murder cases and delivering justice is not contributing to combating the growing crime in our society. On the contrary, it is encouraging it. And the long-delayed judicial process in rape cases is discouraging families of the rape victims from going to the police and filing complaints against sex offenders even after the heinous crime.

As a result of the long-drawn-out trial process in rape cases, sexual assaults against girls and women in Bangladesh have been steadily increasing for the last several years. And for the last several days, Bangladeshi national newspapers have been reporting sexual assault incidents against women almost on a daily basis as if the rapists are celebrating a festival of rape in the country. Nowadays, they have ganged up in many cases and begun raping even passengers not only on moving buses but also on running trains and at train stations in Bangladesh.

Thus the headlines are not so pretty. Rather they reflect rising and violent sex offences in the country. Here are some of the recent headlines: "Girl gang raped after being sedated in Demra" (Observerbd.com, Monday, October 17, 2022), "Beautician gang raped at Dhanmandi house" (Observerbd.com, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022), "Teenage girl gang-raped in train, 5 arrested" (Risingbd.com, October 8, 2022) and "Woman gang-raped on moving bus in Gazipur" (Dhakatribune.com, August 6, 2022). In all these incidents, girls and women were raped by multiple rapists.

In nine months of the current year from January to September, as many as 734 women, girls and children were raped, according to Ain O Salish Kendra, a leading  legal aid and human rights organization of Bangladesh. Of them, 168 were gang raped. Additionally, there were 128 attempts to rape during the same period of time. Among the rape victims, 34 women, girls and children of different ages died following the brutal sex crime while seven women and girls committed suicide. The organization collected the information from major national newspapers of Bangladesh and some online news portals of the country.


The statistics compiled by the Ain O Salish Kendra also reflected a disgusting nature of sex crime by the rapists. Of the 734 rape victims, there were 49 preschooler young children under the age of only six. There were also 87 pre-teenagers belonging to the age group of 7-12 and 124 teenagers aged 13 to 18. Among the teenagers, 31 were gang raped by the rapists. But now the question is how many of these rapists have been arrested so far by the police. Each one of them is a threat to the society. The sooner they are arrested the better for the country.


Despite the recent reforms in laws on sexual violence against women and children, sadly there has been no letup in sex offences - meaning rape and gang rape -- in the country. In a clear defiance of even the newly added provision of death penalty for rape cases, the rapists are still having a field day in Bangladesh. Not too long ago, a group of rapists gang-raped a woman who was visiting Cox's Bazar along with her husband and an eight-month-old son. That gang rape and a series of similar incidents since then served as a stark reminder that even the new harsher measures against sex crimes actually failed to restrain the rapists.

In spite of the eye-rolling sex crimes in Bangladesh, the otherwise vocal women groups of the country are mysteriously very quiet. There is no greater assault on a woman than the brutal gang rape. If now is not the time for the women of Bangladesh to speak out against sex offenders, then when will they do it and for what greater cause of the women of the country? And what happened to the #Me Too Movement in Bangladesh that emerged in the nation's capital a few years ago with a big bang? Their silence too is deafening. A friend told me the other day he is appalled by the silence of Bangladeshi women over the ongoing sexual violence against fellow women.

Bangladesh should have been sensitive especially to the ugly crime of sexual assaults on women for historical reasons. During the nine-month Liberation War of the country, nearly half a million Bangladeshi women were raped by Pakistani soldiers and their collaborators. And that unimaginable sexual violence against women is part of the history of independence of Bangladesh. Forgetting that tragic episode will, in fact, amount to forgetting the true history of the nation. Remembering the suffering of those patriotic and brave women, Bangladesh should have pursued an absolutely zero tolerance policy toward any kind of sexual assault on women right from the beginning.

But sadly it hasn't happened. Every government since independence has treated the crime of sexual violence against women too leniently. A rape is a rape and a rapist is a rapist. There is no good rape and good rapist. All rapists are evil -- be it a Pakistani soldier or Bangladeshi thug. But the reality is only few rapists were brought to the court and fewer punished in last 50 years in Bangladesh. And that is precisely the reason sexual violence against women has become a frequently recurring phenomenon in the country.   
The writer is a Toronto-based
journalist who also writes for the Toronto Sun as a guest columnist








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