Victim of human-trafficking suspect Ridoy Babo returns to Bangladesh

India has sent back a Bangladeshi woman after jailing for life seven of her fellow countrymen in a rape a case centred on a video of the assault on her.

Three other young female victims of human trafficking were also handed to Bangladesh Police on Saturday.

They were being taken to the Victim Support Centre in Dhaka’s Tejgaon, said Biplab Kumar Sarker, a deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

The case was filed in May last year after the video of the assault had gone viral and made national headlines in India.

The 22-year-old victim, who had later been identified as a Bangladeshi, was subjected to horrific sexual assaults by the 12 perpetrators, according to the prosecution.

The incident prompted Indian Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju to issue a manhunt for the perpetrators - 11 Bangladeshi nationals and one Indian - via a tweet, urging the public to help police to nab the accused.

Bengaluru police later arrested all of them. Due to national attention, a special prosecutor was appointed and the police filed a chargesheet in a record 28 days.

In the chargesheet, the Bengaluru police indicted the 11 Bangladeshi nationals, who had entered India illegally, for running a trafficking ring. The suspects, the police said, lured young Bangladeshi women on the pretext of employment and later forced them into prostitution.

The victim, according to the chargesheet, was gang-raped by the perpetrators for declining to work as a prostitute.

Key suspect Rafadul Islam alias Ridoy Babo was known to many in Dhaka’s Moghbazar as TikTok Ridoy for his activities on the video-sharing app. The father of the victim from the same area started a case against Ridoy and unidentified others on charges related to human trafficking and pornography at Hatirjheel Police Station.

Police said a number of youths who were trying to become TikTok stars created a Facebook group, which was later used for trafficking in humans with the support of an international ring.

The father told police how Ridoy had lured the victim into migrating to Dubai, where her husband works. Despite the father’s repeated warnings, the woman had remained adamant and eventually left home, ending up in India.