Four men to spend life in jail for 2016 rape on bus in Tangail

A tribunal has sentenced four transport workers to life in jail for raping a woman on a moving bus in Tangail three years ago.

Tangail Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal judge Begum Khaleda Yasmin delivered the verdict on Wednesday.

The convicts are bus driver Habibur Rahman Nayan, his assistants Md Khalek Bhutto, 23, and ‘Ashraful’, 26, and supervisor Rezaul Karim Jewel.

Rezaul is on the run while the others were in court during the delivery of the verdict.

The judge also fined the four Tk 100,000 each, Nasimul Akter Nasim, the lawyer for the state, told bdnews24.com.

The 23-year-old woman, a garment factory worker, was headed home in Gazipur on Apr 1, 2016 after visiting a relative at Tangail’s Dhanbarhi. She got on the bus with no other passengers from Dhanbarhi bus stand.

She was gagged and restrained as the driver and his associates took turns in raping her. Locals rescued her after they threw her off the bus on the Modhupur-Mymensingh road.

Her husband started a case at Tangail Model Police Station against nine people, including six worker leaders who he said had tried to cover up the crime.

Police arrested the rape accused a day after the incident and charged the four convicts in court after investigation.