Five transporters charged in court in Rupa murder-rape case

Police have charged five transport workers in court with gang-rape and murder of law student Zakia Sultana Rupa.

Tangail Superintendent of Police Md Mahbubul Alam told bdnews24.com that Madhupur Police Station Inspector Kaiyum Khan Siddiqui submitted the chargesheet to the Tangail Judicial Magistrate's Court on Sunday.

All the five accused in the case are Chhowa Paribahan staffers - bus driver 'Habibur', 45, supervisor Safar Ali, 55, and driver's helpers 'Shamim', 26, 'Akram', 35, and 'Jahangir', 19.

SP Alam said, "The investigation in this sensational case had completed much earlier. We were waiting for the DNA test report, which arrived last Wednesday."    

Court Police Inspector Md Anwarul Islam said the charges against the five also include concealing the dead body of the victim.

Police recovered the body of Rupa, a resident of Sirajganj's Tarash, at Madhupur in Tangail on Aug 25.

She studied at Ideal Law College in Dhaka and had been working in the marketing division of a company. Her area of coverage was Mymensingh Sadar.

She was on her way to her workplace after taking the teachers' registration test in Bogra on that day. 

According to the case dossier, she was gang-raped and then brutally killed on a moving bus of Chhowa Paribahan.

She was buried in Tangail as unclaimed. Later, her family claimed the body and took it back to their ancestral home.   

Police after arresting the men said they had confessed to raping the young woman while the bus was travelling from Kalihati to Modhupur.