Cops deliberately ignored evidence of rape, murder

Parents and locals of a deceased teenage domestic help yesterday alleged that police deliberately overlooked the evidence of rape and murder on the body to save the perpetrators.

The investigation would take a wrong turn because of the "misleading inquest" by the police, they alleged.

"My daughter was raped and killed," said Phulbanu, mother of the victim at a press conference organised by Bangladesh Manabadhikar Bastabayan Sangstha (BMBS) at its office in the capital yesterday.

The body of the victim, Jonia, 13, was found next to the building of her mother's former employer, hours after she went there on March 6.

The girl had been filling in for her sick mother who worked part-time for a government official in a flat of Building-3 in NAM Garden.

A day after her death, locals and family members of the victim laid siege to the Kafrul Police Station and NAM Garden Officers' Quarters at Mirpur, demanding arrest of her mother's employer who, they alleged "raped and killed the girl".

Carrying the body, they also blocked a road in Kazipara of Mirpur, after it was discovered that her "body had bite and scratch marks".

Her father Osman Gani said that he had tried to file a rape and murder case immediately after her death, but police filed an unnatural death case instead.

BMBS Secretary General Advocate Sigma Huda said faulty inquest of a dead body can weaken a murder case.

Asked for comments, Shikdar Md Shaheen Hossain, officer-in-charge of Kafrul Police Station, said the allegations were wrong. "We are waiting for the postmortem report. We will take action after we receive the report. The law cannot function according to emotions."

He added that the cause of her death was under investigation.