Two housewives raped for voting

Criminals raped two Hindu homemakers at gun point in front of their families for voting in the January 5 elections.
The incident took place at Hazrail Rishipara of Monirampur upazila in Jessore, just two days after the attack on Hindus at Malopara in Abhaynagar of the district on the election day.
Criminals, wearing masks, stormed two Hindu homes late Tuesday night and early Wednesday. They tied up the men and children before violating the women.
Yesterday, the victims filed two cases with Monirampur Police Station against seven to eight unidentified men.
The gunmen, also armed with sharp weapons, stormed a hut of the village around 10:00pm on Tuesday where they raped one of the women, reports our Jessore correspondent.
The second victim in an interview with a television channel said the men broke into her house and tied up her husband, father, mother, and in-laws and children and then one of them raped her.
She said she was raped around 2:30am on Wednesday.
In the morning, the entire family of a victim left the area in fear.
Local union parishad member Afzal Hossain told journalists about the incident and that he had visited the homes the next day and talked to a victim. The woman had told Afzal that the rapist whilst violating her asked her why she had voted in the election.
Joydev Bhadra, superintendent of police of Jessore, said, “When we heard it from a journalist, police went to the village and found the two victims. They are now at Monirampur Police Station. We are going to bring them to Jessore Medical College Hospital for tests.”
The district administration has sent a 10-members police team to the village. Since the incident, the villagers had set up neighbourhood watch during the night. The Hindus, especially the women, have been living in fear.
Atrocities on the Hindus, however, are still going on.
Allegedly BNP-Jamaat men set fire to a Hindu house at Leelarhat village in Thakurgaon Thursday night and hay heaps belonging to Hindus in Bashiadevi village.
The Hindus have set up neighbourhood watches in around 15 villages in Thakurgaon and women of the community are spending the nights huddled together at one place for better security.
Meanwhile, burglars broke into two temples at Satdoha of Magura early Friday and stole gold and silver ornaments and money.
Quoting Santosh Dutta, president of Satdoha Mandir Committee, BSS reported that the robbers broke through iron grills of the temples around 4:00am and stole the ornaments and money from a donation box.
The Hindu people of Malopara in Abhaynagar of Jessore are still dependent on the relief provided by different organisations. BNP-Jamaat men had devastated the entire village on the election night, vandalising several houses and looting their valuables.
Young women of the village are still staying away from the village while the traumatised villagers are still too scared to go out of the village. Many are still receiving threats of arson attacks. A large number of Hindu students of the upazila are not going to school.
Jessore police have so far detained 42 people in connection with the violence at Malopara. Only two of the detainees were actually accused in the case filed for the atrocities on the Hindus there.
There were relief materials for the Hindus of Kornai village in Dinajpur, which saw one of the worst attacks on the minority community after the January-5 polls. The villagers are still reeling from the attack.
Fultoli Rani Roy of Kornai said, “We are getting everything like food, warm clothes and security, but it is hard to sleep well at night.”
She recalled how the attackers had beaten her and her husband Shoroni Kanto Roy in broad daylight on the election day.
On Sunday, 1,500 to 2,000 Jamaat-Shibir and BNP men had attacked the Hindus at Kornai. They looted houses and shops of 155 families and set some of them on fire.
Meanwhile, Subrata Chowdhury, a leader of Bangladesh Hindu Buddha Christian Oikya Parishad, said it was not only the Jamaat-Shibir men who had made the attacks.
“We also saw Awami League men involved in some incidents too,” he told the BBC Bangla Service in an interview yesterday.