Apparel worker Salma Akter (not her real name), was gang-raped in Dhaka's Pallabi area around 17 years ago.
Around midnight of May 3, 2003, eight people stormed her sister's house, where Salma used to stay, and pounced on her and forced themselves on her one after the other. They beat and kept her sister and brother-in-law hostage.
Two days later, a case was filed with Pallabi police station, leading to the arrest of the eight accused Hamid, Shamim, Mostafa, Selim, Neta alis Anwar, Azad, Korban and Kalu.
On July 29, 2003, the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-3 of Dhaka indicted them.
Even after all these years, they are on the run, having been granted bail on separate occasions on grounds of a lengthy trial process.
The tribunal’s Special Public Prosecutor Mahmuda Akhtar said the case proceedings had been sluggish mainly owing to an absence of witnesses in court.
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“Due to the same problem, many defence lawyers are unwilling to help us. Moreover, most of the witnesses change their addresses for security purposes,” Mahmuda said.
Moreover, in certain instances, the plaintiff and the defence settle their cases outside court – which is a major reason for the delay in case proceedings, the lawyer said.
In a separate case, house tutor Shariful Islam married his student Rokeya Begum (also not her actual identity) following several years of a relationship.
After they tied the knot on September 28, 2017, Rokeya came to know that Shariful had another wife.
Adding to her woes, Shariful began torturing her regularly for a Tk10 lakh dowry, as he was jobless. He finally managed to get a job and then divorced Rokeya on February 13, 2018.
Rokeya sued him on September 13 that year. Consequently, police arrested him, but he was later freed on bail.
Advocate Mithun Mazumder, lawyer for Rokeya, said Shariful had repeatedly been offering to negotiate with Rokeya on the case filed against him.
“For Rokeya, things are getting tougher as she is not getting support from her own family in this regard because she married Shariful on her own,” he said.
“And taking advantage of the situation and the lengthy trial procedure, Shariful has dared to come up with the offer of negotiations,” the lawyer said.
“Additionally, Rokeya became psychologically weak due to the unwarranted situation. She has struggling to get a job,” Mithun concluded.
According to Supreme Court data (till June 2019), a total of 1,65,327 cases are pending on charges of violence against women and children.
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A total of 34,233 cases are pending for more than five years. 1,152 cases are pending with nine tribunals in Dhaka, 1,129 in Gazipur, 2,549 in seven tribunals in Chittagong, 1,105 in two tribunals in Noakhali, 1,554 in Naogaon, 1,383 in two tribunals in Sirajganj, 1,801 in Khulna, 1,746 in Bagerhat, 1,210 in Barisal, 3,375 in three tribunals in Rangpur and 1,163 in two tribunal in Nilphamari.
In a span of three months, more than 10,804 cases were filed (from April 1, 2019 to June 30, 2019) across the country, according to Supreme Court data. Of them, 1,076 cases were filed in Dhaka, 496 in Chittagong, 586 in Comilla, 367 in Sirajganj, 425 in Habiganj, and 169 cases in Rangpur.
A total number of 1,139 cases are pending due to stay orders passed by the apex court.
When asked if there had been any improvement in the long proceedings of a trial, Supreme Court lawyer advocate Fawzia Karim Firoze, said: “Due to various media reports, we now know about such incidents of repression of women and children. But is there any scope for improvement?”
“A few punishments may be handed out but the delay is mainly happening due to the discriminatory nature of laws. But we cannot even call it discrimination anymore,” the lawyer added.
She added that this discrimination had been there for a long time and hence those who tormented women thought that a delay in the delivery of verdicts was normal.
According to the law, a verdict should be pronounced within six months.
