Shafat Ahmed, four others indicted in Raintree rape case

A court has indicted Shafat Ahmed, the son of an Apan Jewellers co-owner, and four others over the rape of two university students at the Raintree hotel in Dhaka’s Banani.

The Dhaka Women and Children Repression Prevention Court-2 set Jul 24 for the date of the trial at the indictment hearing on Thursday.

The other defendants in the case are E-Makers Event Management employee Nayem Ashraf and Regnum Group Director Shadman Sakif, Shafat's driver Billal Hossain and bodyguard Rahmat Ali. All five were present in court.

Sakif petitioned the court to disregard his confessional statement recorded by a magistrate, claiming it had been extracted under duress.

All five suspects had given confessional statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure or CrPC, which allows magistrates to record confessions of any person which can be used as evidence in trial.

Dhaka Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-2 Judge Mohammad Safiul Azam ordered Sakif's petition be put on the record.

Two university students accused the men of involvement in the rape in a case filed with Banani police in May.

Shafat had invited the two to his birthday party at Banani's Raintree Hotel on Mar 28. The girls said he and his friend Ashraf forced them into a room and raped them at gunpoint.

They accused three others of aiding the rapists and filming the sexual assault.

Shafat and Shadman were arrested in Sylhet on May 11. Billal and Rahmat were arrested in Dhaka on May 15.

Two days later, Nayem Ashraf, known as Hasan Mohammad Halim in his native Sirajganj, was arrested in Munshiganj.