The High Court yesterday ordered the government to exhume and run an autopsy on the body of a Bangladeshi woman who was killed after allegedly being raped in India two months ago.
The court asked the government to submit the autopsy report of the victim – Nargis Begum – by June 16. The authorities would also have to submit relevant documents regarding the victim’s body that had previously been handed over to Sonadanga police station in Khulna.
The bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul-Huq and Justice Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman came up with the order after being moved by a writ petition filed by the victim’s maternal aunt Rahela Begum and chief executive of Bangladesh Human Rights Foundation Alena Khan.
The petitioners will ask the local administration of Khulna to exhume the victim’s body after getting the written order of the High Court in hand, Alena Khan told reporters. After an autopsy, it will be revealed whether Nargis was raped or not, Alena said.
According to media reports, 32-year-old Nargis, who hailed from Khulna’s Sonadanga, was allegedly raped and killed by criminals in Firozabad of Uttar Pradesh in March. She went to India with her daughter Kakoli and mother Anwara Begum on March 7 for medical treatment.
They had started for New Delhi from Kolkata on a train on March 9 and the next day when they reached a station around 3:30am, some people misinformed them that they had arrived in New Delhi.
Nargis’s mother Anowara said after getting off the train they realised that they had left a bag behind in the train. Nargis went back inside when criminals kidnapped her and forced her into an autorickshaw.
Police in Uttar Pradesh later found her body near the railway line in Firozabad district in the second week of March. They claimed that Nargis was not raped but ran over by a train.