Fakhrul headed to Noakhali to meet gang-rape victim

BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir and other Jatiya Oikya Front leaders are headed to Noakhali to meet the woman who became the victim of gang-rape on the election day and her family.

The group left the BNP Chairperson’s Office in Gulshan at 7:30 am on Saturday morning.

Fakhrul is accompanied by former BNP Noakhali MP and party Vice Chairman Md Shajahan, JSD President ASM Abdur Rab, Krishak Sramik Janata League President Abdul Kader Siddique and other leaders from the alliance.

According to BNP leaders, the Oikya Front leaders will ask after the condition of the victim, who is undergoing treatment at Noakhali General Hospital and meet with local lawyers to discuss the situation before returning to Dhaka.

On the night of December 30, the day of the 11th national parliamentary election, a woman was beaten and gang-raped and her husband and daughter were tied up after she had gone to vote.

The woman alleged that she argued with Awami League supporters when she went to vote and they attacked her because of it.

Amid nationwide outrage a Human Rights Commission team and a Chattogram Police Range DIG went to Noakhali to speak with the victim, bdnews24.com reported.

So far police have arrested seven people in connection with the incident, including a local Awami League leader. Four of them are accused in a case filed by the woman.

Jatiya Oikya Front chief Kamal Hossain said in a statement on Friday the “mediaeval-style barbaric incident” is “hard to imagine in any democracy” and that it had “degraded the nation”.