Charges pressed against two

Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) yesterday pressed charges against two drivers of a garment buying house for gang-raping a 21-year-old indigenous woman in the capital on May 21.

After being arrested on May 27, Ashraf Khan alias Tushar, 35, and Jahidul Islam Lavlu, 26, confessed before a Dhaka court that the two lured the woman with job offers, forced her into a microbus in Kuril bus stand area and gang-raped her in the running vehicle.

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The duo also confessed that only two of them were involved in the crime.

But the victim initially filed the case against five people and later dropped three names, admitting that she was unstable while filing the case and said only Tushar and Lavlu raped her, investigation officer Azmila Nasrin Chowdhury said.

On March 28, three people gave judicial statements as witnesses before magistrates that the duo on May 22 had bragged to them about the crime.

Nasrin, assistant superintendent of police of Rab-1, submitted the charge sheet to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court of Dhaka, showing 23 people as prosecution witnesses.

The court tomorrow will decide whether it will accept the charges. The arrestees are now on a 10-day police remand.

RAB ARRESTS RAPISTS OF GIRL IN GAZIPUR

Rab officials on Saturday arrested two alleged rapists of a 12-year-old girl in Shibbari Mor area while they were fleeing to Chittagong in a bus.

Both of the arrestees, Md Alam, 40, and Mozammel, 30, admitted to raping the girl on July 11 night and fleeing to their village homes the next day when the victim's father filed a case, said Rab officials.