Tanore 'rapists' held under Section 54!

Two of the four BNP men accused of gang-raping a woman 17 years ago in Tanore were arrested Thursday not in the rape case but under Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC).

Police presented Yaad Ali and Omar Ali before a magistrate Thursday night showing them held under Section 54, not even mentioning their possible involvement in the rape case, sources said.

Officials concerned said the arrestees could not be implicated in the rape as almost all the documents of the case, including the victim's complaints, the main and the supplementary charge sheets, and various court orders, remain missing.

"They [arrestees] will be shown arrested under the rape case as soon as the documents that hold them responsible for the rape are found," said a senior official preferring anonymity.

The district administration meanwhile has not taken any step to find out how the High Court order in the case took more than nine years to reach Rajshahi and how the case documents went missing.

The victim's lawyers alleged officials at the judicial section at Rajshahi Collectorate might have misplaced the documents to save the rapists. But the officials refuted the allegation claiming the papers had never been sent to them.

In absence of the Rajshahi deputy commissioner, a senior official at the collectorate admitted that no committee has been formed yet to investigate the mysterious loss of papers, "But, we are looking for the missing documents and the culprits for the misplacement."

TOP ACCUSED CLAIMS
After more than a week's effort, The Daily Star yesterday managed to contact the top accused in the case, Mofiz Uddin, the current Tanore upazila BNP vice president and Chanduria union parishad chairman.

"He went into hiding after police raided his house on a home ministry order," a police official said.

Mofiz denied the accusations against him and said he was just a 22-year kid when the incident occurred and that he was implicated in this case of repression on women by his political and family enemies.

"I know, people think me bad, but, believe me, I did not rape her. I was a kid, only 22 years old. I was not aware of any politics, I only worked for BNP leader Abdul Mozid Mollah," he said.

Talking over cellphone for over half an hour, he claimed it was his enemy Muhammad Ali who had raped the woman and then falsely implicated him and his associates in the case.

Mofiz said, "After being arrested in the rape case, Muhammad Ali pressured his son-in-law Korban Ali into marrying the woman and get him released from the charge. So the woman went against us [four]. But, you know, we were just witnesses to her rape."

THE SORRY TALE AGAIN
Talking to The Daily Star, the victim, a 34-year-old woman, dismissed what Mofiz has claimed and said Korban married her out of generosity not from any ulterior motive.

"Besides, I accused the four only two months after the rape, while we married a couple of years later," she pointed out.

About Muhammad Ali she said, "I used to call him uncle, as he was a friend of my father. He witnessed the tortures on me, like many other people did, before my rape."

Speaking from hiding, the woman claimed Mofiz, Omar and Yaad bribed her uncle Sayed Ali Satari and kidnapped her, an orphan aged 18 at the time, from her house at Deotola village. On the way, she fled to the house of her relative Idris. But, the three again dragged her out of the house right in front of a number of villagers and took her to Mozid Mollah's house.

"At Talpukur, on way to Mozid's house, they raped me one after another, making me bleed. At one point I fainted. Then they took me to Mozid, who also raped me overnight," she narrated.

Her ordeal did not end there. Her uncle Sayed lodged a case with Tanore Police Station accusing Muhammad Ali of the rape. Then she was kept confined to Mofiz's house for many days until police pressed charges against Muhammad.