5 Tangail transport leaders sent to jail on surrender

A court here yesterday sent five of the six transport leaders, who allegedly tried to protect the rapists of a female garment worker, to jail after they surrendered to the court and sought bail.

Judge Hamidul Islam of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court in Tangail rejected their bail prayers and sent them to jail, court sources said.

The leaders are Ilias Hossain and Selim Uddin, vice-presidents of Tangail District Transport Workers' Union, Jalal Uddin Jalu, organising secretary, Md Selim alias Military Selim, publicity secretary, and Abdul Latif, former organising secretary of the union.

Mominul Islam Lablu, joint secretary of the union, did not appear before the court. Victim's husband filed a case against nine transport workers and leaders under Women and Children Repression Prevention Act with Dhanbari Police Station on Friday night.

He filed the case, accusing three bus staff of raping his wife, a garment worker, on a running bus in Madhupur upazila of the district on Friday last, and six transport leaders of trying to protect the rapists through arbitration, said Khan Hasan Mustafa, inspector (investigation) of Dhanbari Police Station, also investigation officer of the case.

Police arrested the three bus staff on the day of incident. The arrestees are bus driver Habibur Rahman Nayan, helper Abdul Khalek Bhutto, and trip supervisor Rezaul Karim Jewel and . They were produced before the Senior Judicial Magistrate's Court in Tangail the following day, seeking a five-day remand.

The court placed Nayan and Jewel on a three-day remand and sent Bhutto to jail as he gave confessional statement under Section 164. Judge Luna Ferdousi recorded the statement.

Jewel and Nayan also gave confessional statements before the court of Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Hamidul Islam on Monday and Tuesday.

The female garment worker, aged around 23, was returning from a relative's house in Dhanbari upazila of Tangail to her house in Gazipur in a Binimoy Paribahan bus early Friday. She was only passenger in the bus that had three staff on board.

Around 6:00am, when the bus was on the Tangail-Mymensingh Road in Madhupur upazila the transport workers locked the gate and windows. They also tied her hands and legs and gagged her. Three of the bus staff then took turns to rape before throwing her out of the bus at a desolate place by the road.