Family suspects local miscreants, one held
Gol-e-Noor wailed as she visited the place again yesterday.
In a densely populated Chondipur Adarshapara area of Rajshahi city, it is hardly a 1,000 square feet of vacant land. Its three corners are surrounded by a five-foot boundary wall while a two-storied building covered the fourth.
The body of Anny Khatun, Noor's 11-year-old granddaughter, was found lying upside down there on Thursday noon. The autistic girl had been missing since Tuesday evening.
A forensic lecturer of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital who performed her autopsy confirmed that she was gang-raped and tortured before murder.
Noor was raising Anny for the last two years after her son and Anny's father Golam Mostafa Ratan died and Ratan's wife left their son and Anny with her. “Often, Anny used to go missing as she couldn't remember the address but people always brought her back. She never went missing for long,” she said. Around 8:00pm on Tuesday, Noor found Anny was missing. Once the news spread, a woman who lived on the two-storied building beside the land informed about the body. When this correspondent went to talk to her and other residents, none were willing. The land belonged to the owner of the building, one Raihan Ali, they said but were reluctant to share his contact information. “We found burn and bite marks and bruises all over her body. Her scarf was tied around her neck,” said Anjuara Khatun, Anny's aunt. The family suspected that the miscreants must be from the locality.
“No outsiders would have dared to commit such a heinous crime,” said Anny's uncle Joynal Abedin Swapan, who filed a gang-rape and murder case with Rajpara Police Station accusing unnamed people. Often, local miscreants and drug addicts gather near that place. “Dwellers are afraid of them as some carry arms,” he alleged.
Police detained a local youth Momin, 21, Thursday night, who was placed on a seven-day remand by a court, said OC Amanullah of the station. "We have also collected DNA samples."
Meanwhile, demanding punishment, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad at a press conference in the city said they recorded 437 incidents of rape and torture on women and children in the district from January to November this year.
Comments