Another accused confesses to raping garment worker

Trip Supervisor Rezaul Karim Jewel, one of the accused of gang-raping a female garment worker on a running bus, gave a confessional statement under Section 164 in a Tangail court yesterday.

Hamidul Islam, additional judicial magistrate, recorded Rezaul's statement, said Khan Hassan Mostofa, inspector (Investigation) of Dhanbari Police Station, also the investigation officer of the case. Rezaul was later sent to jail.

Earlier on Saturday, Abdul Khalek Bhutto, helper of the bus, also gave confessional statement to Luna Ferdousi, senior judicial magistrate in Tangail.

Bus driver Habibur Rahman Nayan, the main accused in the case, is on remand at Dhanbari Police Station. He will be produced before the court today after expiry of his remand.

Earlier on Saturday, the trio was produced before the senior judicial magistrate's court, which placed Nayan and Jewel on a three-day remand.

The victim's husband filed a case against nine transport workers and leaders, including the three bus staff, with the police station under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act on Friday night.

The rest of the accused transport leaders, who allegedly tried to protect the rapists, have gone into hiding.

"We are launching drives at different places to arrest them," said Mujibor Rahman, officer-in-charge of Dhanbari Police Station.

The female garment worker, aged around 23, was returning from a relative's house in Dhanbari upazila of Tangail to her house in Gazipur on a Binimoy Paribahan bus early Friday morning, police said, quoting the victim. She was only passenger in the bus that had four staff, including the driver, 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.