A mother and daughter duo have been hospitalised with severe injuries after courageously fighting off a rape attempt on the daughter by local goons who are out to grab their property.
It’s a sordid tale from Sholdana, a village in Gupti West in Faridganj upazila of Chandpur.
The attempted rape took place on September 2, since when the victims have been undergoing treatment at Chandpur Government General Hospital.
Talking to UNB at the hospital today, they said apart from the trauma of that day, they are also passing their days even now in great fear, as the perpetrators remain untouched and have threatened to repeat the act once they are back home from the hospital.
The mother narrated how after her husband got paralysed by a stroke, she and her daughter were left vulnerable without a ‘man in the house’.
A group of goons with political backing, headed by a man named Sabuj, have tried to exploit their position by illegally occupying their property.
Sabuj, accompanied by Bashir, Tofajjal Bepari, Ibrahim, Idris, and some other local goons, staged repeated attacks on the mother-daughter duo with knife-like weapons from August 26-31, as part of attempts to spook them into leaving what is rightfully theirs, according to the mother.
Refusing to give up, they mustered the courage and strength to file a case at a Chandpur court against Sabuj and his partners in crime, accusing them of attempted murder.
Enraged, Sabuj and Bashir dragged them to a house on September 2 and tried to rape the daughter.
Being the fighting women they are, they continued resisting and the mother even called 999(National Emergency Service number).
At one point, locals broke in and rescued them from the savages, who didn’t even attempt to flee as they were certain that no one could harm them – and it seems they were right.
When sub inspector Mohsin of Faridganj police station arrived at the scene, he only took the victims to Chandpur General Hospital.
The accused also took Tk 80,000 and golden ornaments from them, the mother alleged.
Sources within the law enforcement agency failed to provide any suitable answers as to why the accused remain outside their net.
Our correspondent reached out to accused Sabuj, but he straightaway denied any involvement, saying he was not even present in the area on the day of the incident.
He suggested to contact local representatives for ‘proof of his innocence’, confident they would provide his bonafides.
Even if that didn’t quite happen, acting chairman Sharif Gazi of Gupti West Union washed his hands of the entire affair, telling UNB that he does not know the details of the incident.
“I have asked the member from that area, Mostofa Kamal, to ‘settle’ the matter, but he is currently in Dhaka,” Sharif added.
OC Shahid Hossain of the local police station passed the buck to the vulnerable victims, saying police are yet to receive any official complaint from them – seemingly oblivious of the earlier court case filed by the mother.
“We will definitely look into it if the incident is reported,” the OC added. Putting the onus on the victims to file the case, especially vulnerable ones like this mother and daughter, tends to favour the perpetrators, who are already using intimidation tactics to try and silence them.
It begs the question: why will the police not use its own authority to file the case? The answer is what the mother and her daughter are up against.
Source: United News of Bangladesh