Neighbours rescued a newly-wed woman, allegedly tortured by her in-laws, from an apartment of the staff quarters of Bangladesh Agricultural University on Monday night.
Some children found a letter on a playground while playing in the afternoon near H7/10 apartment of the BAU staff quarters adjacent to the Second Gate area of the university.
One of them gave the four-page letter to her father Billal Hossain living on the third floor of the same building.
Billal revealed that it was a help-seeking letter from Razia Sultana Popy, 20, who got married last month and lived on the first floor of the building.
Later, he disclosed the matter to other residents and rescued the girl around 8pm. He also informed the matter to Popy’s uncle over phone. She is now staying in her parents’ house.
Popy, daughter of late Abdul Mannan from Vatibayera village under Mymensingh Sadar upazila, got married to an unemployed youth named Nur Mohammad, 20, on October 29 after a two-year love affair.
“My mother-in-law, sister, brothers-in-law and husband except for my father-in-law have tortured me physically and mentally almost every day since my marriage,” Popy alleged.
“They even pierced needle through my fingernail, scratched my skin with sharp blades and burnt different parts of my body with a hot iron,” the victim narrated her ordeal in her in-law’s house.
“I have never been able to contact my family members as they took away my SIM card. I could not even tell my neighbours as nobody visited my in-laws,” she continued.
“Instead, they filed a general diary with Kotwali police station a few days back stating that they would not be held responsible if something wrong happened to me.”
Finding no alternative, she then wrote a letter seeking help and threw it out of the window for someone to pick up.
Residents of the staff quarters, however, said Nur Mohammad’s family members except for his father did not give their consent to the marriage.
Nur Mohammad, his mother Nurjahan Begum, sister Shocura Begum and his two younger brothers denied the torture allegation.
“It is nothing but a conspiracy hatched by the residents of the quarters against us,” said victim’s mother-in-law Nurjahan Begum. “We never tortured her [Popy].”
Upon receiving information, Sub-Inspector Akbar Ali of Kotwali police rushed to the spot.
Although he wanted to take a written statement from the victim and her uncle Basir Mridha, the officer left the place immediately.
Neighbours alleged that the SI took bribe from Popy’s mother-in-law in a bid to shift the blame on Popy. Akbar refuted the allegation.
