Raped, little girl fights for life

A five-year-old was beaten and raped. Her body bore several bite and scratch marks. Her rapists also burnt parts of her body with cigarettes.

The girl is now fighting for her life at the One-stop Crisis Centre (OCC) of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) where she was admitted yesterday.

In the afternoon of October 18, the girl was playing near her home in Jamirhat village in Dinajpur's Parbatipur upazila. Around evening, her mother noticed that she was missing.

Worried sick, the family searched but could not find her, said her rickshaw-puller father.

Next morning, villagers found her lying bloodied and unconscious on a field in the same village.

She was first rushed to a local hospital and later moved to Rangpur Medical College Hospital (RMCH). As her condition worsened, she was then taken to the DMCH, said Bikash Majumder, a paediatrician at the RMCH.

Evidence of rape was found in her body, Bilkis Begum, coordinator of the OCC at the DMCH, said, adding that the victim was beaten and bitten. There were marks of burn from cigarettes and sharp-weapon injuries on her body.

“She is under observation. She will have a surgery today,” Bilkis added.

Meanwhile, police arrested one of the alleged rapists, Saiful Islam, 42, of Jamirhat village in Parbatipur, at Dinajpur town Monday night.

Acting on a tip-off, police raided Gor-e-Shahid Boromath area and arrested him. He was produced before a Dinajpur court which sent him to jail yesterday, reports our Dinajpur correspondent.

Mahmudul Alam, officer-in-charge of Parbatipur Police Station, said they were trying to arrest another accused.

The father of the five-year-old filed a rape case with Parbatipur police on Thursday, accusing Saiful, one of their neighbours, and one Afzal Hossain, 48, of Jamirhat, of raping the girl.

Demanding exemplary punishment of the culprits, he said, “I cannot even imagine how brutal one can be that he does such a heinous crime.”