Three people, including teenagers, were arrested on Monday in a case filed over the gang-rape of a sixth-grader in Khulna’s Digholiya Upazila two days earlier.
The arrestees were identified as Md Shanto Biswas, 21, Munna, 17, and Billal Sheikh, 17.
Officer-in-charge (OC) Md Ahsan Ullah Chowdhury of Digholiya police station said the accused had confessed to the crime in court under Section 164.
However, since the two accused are below 18 years of age, their offences can be tried under the Juvenile Act, he added.
The victim is currently undergoing treatment at the One Stop Crisis Centre at Khulna Medical College Hospital. Her mother has filed a rape case with Digholiya police.
According to police, the girl left the house with her classmates to go to school on Saturday morning.
When they reached a paved road near a mango orchard, the girl's former acquaintances Shanto and his two friends Munna and Billal stopped her and threatened her with a hammer.
At one stage, the accused took the girl to the orchard and raped her. Later, the locals arrived at the scene on hearing the screams of the girl.
A team of police, led by OC Ahsan and Inspector (Investigation) Ripon Kumar Sarkar, conducted a raid and arrested the trio with the help of locals on Monday.
Meanwhile, a young woman from Chittagong, who came to Habiganj looking for work, was gang-raped for two days in Madhabpur Upazila.
On Friday, the woman was waiting for transport on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway in the Dargah Gate area.
At that time, three men forcibly took her to a house in Riaz Nagar village. They kept her there for two days and gang-raped her.
Later, the accused tied her arms and legs and left her abandoned on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway.
The girl was admitted to Habiganj Sadar Hospital, said Madhabpur police station OC Muhammad Abdur Razzak.
Rights activists have expressed serious concerns with incidents of sexual assaults and rape rising alongside child marriage during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Between August 2020 and November 2021, at least 1,117 female children were raped across the country, according to the National Girl Child Advocacy Forum (NGCAF) on Sunday, while the number was 626 just a year ago.
Of the rape victims, 155 were gang-raped in separate incidents while 45 girls were killed after rape.
