‘Make sure accused does not walk free thru’ legal loophole’

Manusher Jonno Foundation yesterday expressed concern and grief over  the recent death of a woman at a city flat and reported anticipatory  bail petition by an accused in a case filed over the death incident.

In a statement, MJF demanded a fair probe into the incident so that  the accused in the case for 'murder or provoking suicide', cannot walk free  by taking advantage of loopholes of the law.

Notably, incidents of deaths of women and children including Tonu,  Nusrat, and the O-level student from Kalabagan continued to rise, and MJF believes incidents of violence against women have hurt and worried people of the country, the statement said.

It has not been possible to bring many of the perpetrators  involved in torture against women under the trial or they  walked free due to misuse of power, the rights group said.   

MJF Executive Director Shaheen Anam said, "Due to absence of speedy  trial and exemplary punishment in the incidents of rape and murder, such  incidents continued to rise instead of coming to an end. So, we want  assurance of speedy trial of all sorts of violence against women cases."   

Referring to statistics of Ain O Salish Kendra, MJF said between  January and March this year, 46 women were killed by their husbands in  the country. There were 107 incidents of torture. Of those, cases were  filed in only 39 incidents.   

Besides, another 238 women and children were raped, and ten  of them were murdered. Some 47 females were subjected to attempted rape  and four of them died by suicide because of this.   

In a recent survey report conducted by MJF on the topic "Why the number of rape  incidents is on the rise despite continuous protests and provision for death sentence for the crime?", it was found that case backlog  in the trial process, various economic-political-social influence and in  some cases lack of willingness of law enforcement agencies were responsible for it.   

The research result shows in 25 rape cases filed in the country  between 2012 and 2017, 25 accused were released on bail between 24 hours  and 15 days of arrest.   

At present, 20 of the accused are on bail, three are in prison while  the rest two are walking free under the shelter of influential people.  They were not even detained.   

Moreover, most of the accused after being released on bail have been  trying to influence the cases in different ways, MJF said.