Woman alleges police tried to alter the age of her murdered daughter

The police tried to show the 17-year-old girl, who was raped and killed by a friend at his home in Dhaka’s Kalabagan, older than her real age, her mother has alleged.

The woman raised the allegation after the burial of the girl, an O Level student of a Dhaka school, in their family graveyard in Kushtia on Saturday.

The friend in question, 18-year-old Iftekhar Fardin Dihan, is also an O Level student. He gave a statement before court on Friday confessing to the rape and murder of the girl.

It was Dihan who rushed the girl to the Anwer Khan Modern Khan Hospital in critical condition on Thursday. The doctors declared her dead on arrival and called the police, who later began questioning Dihan and three of his friends.

The mother said the police initially mentioned 19 as the girl’s age in the inquest report after Dihan used the same age for treatment at the hospital.

After the family objected to her age in the report, the police were infuriated and delayed the post-mortem exam, the mother said.

They were not satisfied with the documents the family showed to prove her age. Instead, they tried to confirm her age through tests, the woman said.

That delayed the autopsy by more than 24 hours, the girl’s uncle alleged.

No comments from the police about the allegation were immediately available.

After the autopsy at the Dhaka Medical College on Friday, forensic doctor Sohel Mahmud said the girl had wounds in her genitalia and rectum. “She died of excessive bleeding due to perverted sex,” he added.

Any sexual relationship with a girl below 16, even with her consent, is considered rape in Bangladesh in line with the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act.

Meanwhile, people below 18 years old are defined as children as per the law of the land.

Dihan claimed in a police interrogation that the girl consented to sex.

The father of the girl alleged that the police dropped the names of the three friends of Dihan although he initially accused them in the case filed with Kalabagan Police Station.

The law enforcers convinced him that it would be proper to charge only Dihan as the incident occurred at his home, the father said.

“Later I’ve learnt from the doctors that it is impossible for a single person to inflict such brutality.”

He demanded a “proper” interrogation of Dihan in police custody.