Father now afraid of police
The gang-rape victim's father whom the Charbhadrashan police confined to the police station for about 15 hours after picking him up to identify the houses of the accused, is still in torment.
On August 11, the former investigation officer (IO) of the case Abul Kalam picked the victim's father from his house around 10:00pm and released him for an hour at 3:00pm the next day without providing him any food during the whole time.
"Afraid that the police might lock me again, I went into hiding," said the victim's father, adding that he had not been living in his house since then and kept his cellphone switched off.
"Not only the police, the influential family members of Kalam and Tushar (the two FIR named accused) also threatened to decapitate me kidnapping from home," he told The Daily Star yesterday.
For the details of his sufferings and threats on him, The Daily Star correspondents somehow managed his contact number and asked him to come to Faridpur town. But it was very unpleasant for the shocked man. He avoided being seen and recognised to get to town as he feared police and the influential family members of the accused.
"I walked for almost 10 kilometres through bushes and fields before dawn to evade anyone's sight and caught a bus," he said.
"I am the only breadwinner of my six-member family, but I don't dare to go out for work since I received threats on my life," he said, adding that his family is now living on the food that the neighbours share at times.
Asked what police told him during his confinement at the police station, the victim's father said, "I heard the then IO tell another officer that he had taken me into custody to realise the fuel used during the raid to the houses of the accused."
The poor father said as he was kept without food, acid formed in his hungry stomach. "I requested a policeman for some food but instead he--I do not know him--calling dirty names refused me. I could not even close my eyes for a moment for the mosquitoes."
He said during his confinement, around 40 local influential persons went to the Charbhadrashan Police Station to try to convince police in favour of the accused. They tried to establish that his daughter was amoral and responsible for the incident, concluded the victim's father with a heavy voice.
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