In a harrowing tale of love and betrayal, police rescued a teenage girl on Tuesday morning after she endured 11 hours of torture in the hands of her beloved and his family in his house at Rice Research Institute Road in Barisal city.
With the help of the local ward councillor, police rescued the victim and handed her over to her family after treatment at a local hospital. A case was also filed accusing five persons in this connection, sending one of them to prison.
The victim, 18, from Kurulia village in Bakerganj upazila, Barisal, lived in the same neighbourhood as her boyfriend Shahadat Hossain Mithu, 20, son of Altaf Hossian alias Shanu Hawlader, and worked in Sonargaon Textile Mills in Rapatali area, police said.
Firoz Ahmed, the ward councillor, shared the victim’s story with the Dhaka Tribune.
“They have been in a relationship for three years and were physically intimate, but Mithu had no intention of marrying her,” he said.
In fact, in an attempt to shake her off, Mithu took a job and moved to Gazipur in February, but she followed him there and took a job in a sweater factory. As she kept pressing him for marriage, he assured her that they would tie the knot soon.
However, things went downhill for the victim when her beloved tried to pass her around among his friends and force her into prostitution.
As neighbours alerted police, she was rescued and sent to Gazipur Safe Home, and later to her family, while Joydebpur police sent Mithu to prison on charges of rape and anti-social activities on June 2.
No respite from heartbreak
After being released on bail on September 14, Mithu came home to Barisal and asked the victim to meet him at his house on Monday night.
He tried to coerce her into ending the relationship and withdraw the cases against him. When she did not budge, Mithu, his father, mother Hosneara Begum, and others tied her to a tree in his courtyard around 10pm and started to torture her.
It continued until the next morning, when the ward councillor came to her rescue. “Receiving information from journalists, I rushed to the spot around 8am and rescued the girl with the help of police around 9am,” he told the Dhaka Tribune.
No one in the neighbourhood came forward to save the victim until then, the councillor alleged.
Shakhawat Hossain, officer-in-charge of Kotwali police station, said police detained his mother, and neighbours Palash Khan, Shipon Hawlader, Md Ripon, Abdul Huq and Delwar Hossain for interrogation. Everyone except for Hosneara was released after interrogation.
Later, the victim filed a case yesterday against Mithu, his parents and two of his associates Shamsu Khan and Rafiq Akand.
Among them, Hosneara was sent to prison after Metropolitan Magistrate Nasrin Begum denied her bail plea.
Mithu and the other three accused remain in hiding.
Delayed response from rights activists
The delayed response to this incident from the local human and women’s rights organisations garnered criticism in the local media.
However, the local rights activists called for a human chain in the city to protest the repression of the victim and to demand immediate and exemplary punishment of all the accused, said Rahima Sultana Kajal, president of Barisal NGO Development Network.
The human chain is scheduled to take place today morning.
