Apan Jewellers owner's son among five accused in Dhaka hotel rape

The son of an owner of Apan Jewellers is among the men accused of raping two university students in a hotel in Dhaka.

Safat Ahmed is the 26-year-old son of Dildar Ahmed who owns the top jewellery brand with two of his brothers, said Banani Police Inspector Abdul Matin.

In the case started with Banani police on Saturday, the victims named the five, including two of their university friends, saying they were sexually attacked and filmed after they were invited to a birthday party at the Raintree Hotel in Dhaka on Mar 28.

The two girls said they did not file the case earlier because the accused threatened them with dire consequences, including death.

They said the others were Safat's friends -- Nayeem Ashraf, 30, Sadman Sakif, 24, -- and his driver Billal, 26. The case mentions the fifth suspect as Safat's unidentified bodyguard.  

‪The girls accused Safat and Nayeem of confining them to a room and raping them overnight, according to case details. The two raped the girls at gunpoint while the three others helped them and filmed the incident.

“Whatever happened was out of mutual understanding, not by force,” Dildar Ahmed told bdnews24.com, describing the incident as an act of consensual sex.

The girls were taken to the police's Victim Support Centre after the case was initiated.

Nayeem, whose father is a contractor, works in the advertisement section of a private television station, police said. Sadman is the son of Picasso Restaurant owner.

Safat, Nayeem, Sadman run a restaurant at Banani-11 along with the son of a parliament member. They also have more than one Shisha bars, police said. 

The two girls said they were told there would be rooftop party with a lot of guests. But once there, they were saw only Safat, Nayeem and their two female friends with them.

The two girls had identified themselves to the victims as 'Nazia' and 'Tanzilisha'. The four went downstairs and returned to the roof several times, the case mentioned.

At one point, the victims' doctor friend and his female friend arrived to join the party but wanted to leave with the victims after not finding the situation favourable.

The attackers beat up the male friend when he wanted to leave and took away his car keys. "They then took away only the two girls and raped them and released them at 10am next day," reads the case.

The case is unclear about what happened to the male friend and his girlfriend.

But police said the plaintiff told them the two were released 15 to 20 minutes before them. 

"We're hoping to arrest the accused before long," said Dhaka Metropolitan Deputy Commissioner (Media) Masudur Rahman told bdnews24.com.

"We are conducting raids in other places besides their homes. We have talked to the officials of the hotel where this happened."

"We'll talk to the victims' two friends who joined them. We are also trying to identify the two girls whose names the plaintiff mentioned."