Two arrested for ‘raping’ woman on boat in Gazipur

A woman worker has allegedly been raped by her colleagues when she was returning home on a boat in Gazipur.

Police arrested Pran-RFL Group’s boatmen ‘Faruk’, 24, and ‘Sharif’, 26, on Thursday over the Monday’s incident at Kaliganj Upazila.

Kaliganj Police Station Inspector (investigations) Nitai Chandra Sarkar said the victim was an employee of the Pran-RFL Industrial Park.

Four days into the assault, police still kept the victim under their custody rather than hospitalising her for health check-up.

The incident occurred amid an uproar over sexual assault on women during the Bengali New Year celebrations at Dhaka University and gang-rape of a Garo girl on a moving microbus.

Working women had been reportedly targeted recently on their way back home in several such crimes.

The Garo salesperson of a clothing outlet in Dhaka was dragged onto a microbus right from outside her workplace on May 21 and then allegedly raped by five on the moving vehicle.

In Narayanganj, a garment worker was allegedly raped on May 11 by four men while she was returning home by a bus hired by her company.

Meanwhile, investigation officer Sarkar said Pran-RFL Industrial Park at Palash in Narshingdi used to drop its employees to their destinations after their work by boat.

According to case documents, the victim was returning to her home at Nargana in Kaliganj after duty on Monday night.

Once the other workers got down at Shawrait area, boatmen Alamin, ‘25’, and ‘Fahim’, 25, took the boat towards Fakirbari Ghat under Muktarpur union of the upazila and raped her.

They then handed the victim over to two other boatmen of the company Faruk and Sharif, whom they called there over mobile phone.

The latter two left the victim at Fakirbari Ghat around dawn after sexually abusing her, said the case documents.

On Thursday, Faruk and Sharif were arrested from Muktarpur after the victim filed a case with Kaliganj police, accusing the four.

However, the police were accused of being slow in filing the case and being indifferent to the victim’s health check-up even four days into the assault.

“We were busy filing the case and nabbing the criminals. We could not take the victim to the hospital until Thursday,” Kaliganj Police Station OC MD Mustafizur Rahman said.

“Given that the relevant doctor will be unavailable on the weekend, her health check-up can be done only on Sunday.”

Rahman said the victim and her mother were kept under the police custody.

In Dhaka, the Garo victim was made to wait long hours and visit three police stations to lodge the case.

The High Court sought explanation from police for the delay in processing the case.

Late on Tuesday night, RAB arrested two in connection with the case.