Justice after 23 years
A Rangpur court yesterday sentenced five people to 13 years’ jail each, in a case filed over instigating a girl to take her own life in 1996.
Judge Jabid Hossain of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-1 handed down the verdict in a crowded courtroom, in presence of three of the accused.
The convicts are: Manik, Ratan, Rana, Babla and Maleka Begum. Of them, Maleka and Ratan were absent at the court.
According to the prosecution and case statement, Romana Afroz Tandra, an HSC second-year student of a college in Dhaka at the time, was visiting her mother Masuda Chowdhury in Rangpur for a few days.
On July 1, 1996, when she went out of her house to buy a box of matches, one of the accused men grabbed her and harassed her publicly.
The distraught girl returned home and described the incident to her mother. As the mother protested the incident, the five people ganged up on the mother and daughter and assaulted them publicly.
Manik also sexually harassed the girl and ripped off her clothes.
Unable to cope with the humiliation, the girl took her life that same night.
The next day, her mother filed a case with Rangpur Sadar Police Station over sexual harassment, assault and provoking suicide.
Police filed the charge sheet against the five that same year.
“After examining the witnesses and evidence of the case, the judge delivered the judgement of the case, finally serving justice after 23 years,” said Jahangir Alam Tunin, public prosecutor of the court.
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