A man has been arrested over attempted rape of a 10-year-old in Patuakhali. The accused, Md. Delowar Talukdar, 55, is the ward member and organizing secretary of Awami League’s local unit of Ward 8 under Dabluganj union in Kalapara upazila. The mother of the child filed a case against the accused at Mohipur police station. According to police and the child’s family, Delowar, along with 10-15 people, went to Barkutia village on Saturday for Union Parishad election campaign. The child’s mother was working in a nearby field when the incident occurred. Also Read: Wife slaughtered by husband in Joypurhat “He came to our home and, upon realizing my child was alone, molested her,” said the mother. Abul Khair, officer-in-charge of Mohipur police station, said police arrested the accused and sent him to Kolagara court.  

A tribunal in Barishal on Monday sentenced a man in absentia to life imprisonment in two cases for abducting and raping a girl in 2012. The convict was identified as Babul Matabbar, resident of Bahadur village under Mehediganj Upazila in the district. Judge Yarab Hossain of Barishal Women and Child Repression Prevention Tribunal announced the verdict in the absence of the convict on Monday afternoon. However, the court also imposed a Tk 20,000 fine on the accused and issued an arrest warrant as he was absent during the pronouncement of the verdict. According to the prosecution, on 8 June 2012, accused Babul Matabbar entered the victim's house forcefully breaking the door and abducted her as the victim's family refused Babul’s wedding proposal to the victim. On 10 June, the victim's father filed a case with Mehediganj Police Station. On September 5 of the same year, the investigating officer of the case filed a charge sheet accusing Jasim and 5 accused persons. After the testimony of 8 people, the judge gave the verdict.

Chattagram, Feb 6 (UNB)- Police have arrested a union parishad member who allegedly raped a woman along with others in Sitakundu upazila of Chattogram. A team of police of Sitakundu Model Police Station arrested UP member Jahed Sultan Robin from a relative's house in Lalanagar area early Monday. Tofael Ahmed, officer-in-charge of Sitakunda Model Police Station, said they conducted a drive after the woman’s husband filed a case against him. “We arrested him at around 3 am. He was sent to a court,” he said. Police said the rape survivor and his husband were picked up at Sonaichhari union by UP member Jahed Sultan Robin and some cohorts while there were going to their workplace. They tied up the man and raped his wife by turns at the office of the UP member. They also looted two mobile phone sets and gold ornaments from them. Police from a local police station rescued the couple after getting a call on emergency helpline no 999. Robin went into hiding soon after the incident.

The High Court on Wednesday rejected the bail petition Fardin Iftekhar Dihan in a case filed over the rape and subsequent murder of an O-level student in Kalabagan area of the city. The HC bench of Justice SM Emdadul Hoque and Justice KM Zahid Sarwar Kajol passed the order after deposing of the accused’s appeal. The court also ordered completing the trial of the case quickly. Read more: Kalabagan rape case: Lone accused Dihan indicted Senior Lawyer Joynal Abedin and Qazi Ferdousul Hasan appeared for the bail plea in the court while Deputy Attorney General Sujit Chatterjee represented the state. Dihan appealed to the High Court as trial court rejected his bail plea, said Sujit Chatterjee. On January 7, 2021, law enforcers recovered the body of the 17-year-old girl from a city hospital and arrested her boyfriend Fardin Iftekhar Dihan, 18 and three others in this connection. A case was filed over the death of the girl, who was “sexually assaulted” and “killed”. Later, the victim’s father filed the case against Dihan on the night of the incident. On January 9, law enforcers released three youths after interrogation over the matter. Read more: O-level student ‘rape, murder’: Court permits drug test on Dihan Dihan, who is believed to have raped and killed her at his family flat in Kalabagan area, gave a confessional statement before a Dhaka court. Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mamunur Rashid recorded the statement and sent him to jail pending hearing. Meanwhile, doctors found the evidence of rape after autopsy on the victim. Police submitted a chargesheet to the court against Dihan on November 8, 2021. He was indicted in the case on February 16 last year.

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members have  arrested a madrasa teacher in a rape case from Ramna area in the capital. The accused was Md. Alamgir Mollah, 28, a teacher at Malibagh Tamimul Quran Madrasah. Lt. Col. Arif Mohiuddin Ahmed, commanding officer of RAB-3, said that a rape case was filed against Alamgir at Rampura police station on Tuesday. “He kept changing his location after the case was filed,” he said. Read more: 45-yr-old man arrested for raping minor girl in Chattogram Alamgir has been teaching at the madrasah for the past three months and the rape survivor lives near the madrasa. She filed a case under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act,  he added. Read more: Man arrested for raping minor girl after abduction in Ctg

After a month-long trial and nine days of deliberations, Los Angeles jurors on Monday found Harvey Weinstein guilty of the rape and sexual assault of just one of the four accusers he was charged with abusing. But the three guilty counts involving an Italian actor and model known at the trial as Jane Doe 1 still struck a major blow against the disgraced movie mogul, and provided another #MeToo moment of reckoning, five years after he became a magnet for the movement. Weinstein, 70, who is two years into a 23-year sentence for a rape and sexual assault conviction in New York that is under appeal, could get up to 24 years in prison in California when he's sentenced. He was found guilty of rape, forced oral copulation and another sexual misconduct count involving the woman who said he appeared uninvited at her hotel room door during a Los Angeles film festival in 2013. “Harvey Weinstein forever destroyed a part of me that night in 2013 and I will never get that back. The criminal trial was brutal and Weinstein’s lawyers put me through hell on the witness stand, but I knew I had to see this through to the end, and I did,” the woman said in a statement after the verdict. "I hope Weinstein never sees the outside of a prison cell during his lifetime.” Read more: Harvey Weinstein charged with 3 more rapes in California Weinstein was acquitted of a sexual battery allegation made by a massage therapist who treated him at a hotel in 2010. The jury was unable to reach a decision on counts involving two accusers, notably rape and sexual assault charges involving Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom. A mistrial was declared on those counts. Weinstein looked down at the table and appeared to put his face in his hands when the initial guilty counts were read. He looked forward as the rest of the verdict was read. Prosecutors and defense attorneys had no immediate comment on the verdict. “Harvey Weinstein will never be able to rape another woman. He will spend the rest of his life behind bars where he belongs,” Siebel Newsom said in a statement. “Throughout the trial, Weinstein’s lawyers used sexism, misogyny, and bullying tactics to intimidate, demean, and ridicule us survivors. The trial was a stark reminder that we as a society have work to do.” Siebel Newsom's intense and dramatic testimony, in which she described being raped by Weinstein in a hotel room in 2005, brought the trial its most dramatic moments. But only eight of the 12 jurors agreed to find Weinstein guilty of those counts. Jurors were deadlocked 10-2 on a sexual battery count involving Lauren Young, the only accuser who testified at both Weinstein trials. She said she was a model aspiring to be an actor and screenwriter who was meeting with Weinstein about a script in 2013 when he trapped her in a hotel bathroom, groped her and masturbated in front of her. Read more: Prosecutors say Harvey Weinstein deserves a harsh sentence Lacking any forensic evidence or eyewitness accounts of years-old allegations, the case hinged heavily on the stories and credibility of the four women at the center of the charges. The women’s stories echoed the allegations of dozens of others who have emerged since Weinstein became a #MeToo lightning rod starting with stories in the New York Times in 2017. A movie about that reporting, “She Said,” was released during the trial, and jurors were repeatedly warned not to see it. It was the defense that made #MeToo an issue during the trial, however, emphasizing that none of the four women went to the authorities until after the movement made Weinstein a target. Defense lawyers said two of the women — including the one he would be found guilty of raping — were entirely lying about their encounters with Weinstein. They said the other two had “100% consensual” sexual interactions that they later reframed. Defense attorneys said during the trial that if Siebel Newsom hadn't reached her later prominence she would be "just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood.” “Regret is not the same thing as rape,” Weinstein attorney Alan Jackson said in his closing argument. He urged jurors to look past the the women’s emotional testimony and focus on the factual evidence. “‘Believe us because we’re mad, believe us because we cried,’” Jackson said jurors were being asked to do. “Well, fury does not make fact. And tears do not make truth.” All the women involved in the charges went by Jane Doe in court. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly or agree to be named through their attorneys, as the women named here did. Prosecutors called 40 other witnesses in an attempt to give context and corroboration to those stories. Four were other women who were not part of the charges but testified that Weinstein raped or sexually assaulted them. They were brought to the stand to establish a pattern of sexual predation. Weinstein beat four other felony charges before the trial even ended when prosecutors said a woman he was charged with raping twice and sexually assaulting twice would not appear to testify. They declined to give a reason. Judge Lisa Lench dismissed those charges. Weinstein’s latest conviction hands a victory to victims of sexual misconduct of famous men in the wake of some legal setbacks, including the dismissal of Bill Cosby’s conviction last year. The rape trial of “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson, held simultaneously and just down the hall from Weinstein’s, ended in a mistrial. And actor Kevin Spacey was victorious at a sexual battery civil trial in New York last month. Weinstein’s New York conviction survived an initial appeal, but the case is set to be heard by the state’s highest court next year. The California conviction, also likely to be appealed, means he will not walk free even if the East Coast conviction is thrown out.

Members of Rapid Action Battalion (Rab)-6 have arrested four people in connection with the gang rape of a woman in Khulna city on Wednesday night. The arrestees are auto-rickshaw drivers Belal Morol and Azizur Rahman Mithu, bakery worker Jihad Munshi and Md Rasel, a student. The couple was returning to their Phulbari Gate home from Bypass area in the city around 8pm. The accused ridding on two motorbikes obstructed the couple searched them introducing them as officials of administration. Read more: Man detained in horrific rape-and-burn case of mute woman Then they took the woman and her husband to an abandoned house where they blindfolded the husband raped her for around three hours. The alleged rapists videoed them the whole thing and threatened them not to disclose this. Pahan Chakma, senior assistant superintendent of the Rab-6, said they came to know the incident from their sources and asked the couple to come further to Khulna Medical College Hospital where they disclosed the incident. Read more: Young girl ‘gang raped’ in Cumilla: 5 held Young girl ‘gang raped’ in Cumilla: 5 held The victim is now undergoing treatment at One-stop Crisis Center of the KMCH, he said.

The High Court on Thursday asked the authorities concerned to shift the case over the gang rape of a woman at MC College in Sylhet, to the speedy trial tribunal. The HC bench of Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice Ahmed Sohel passed the order and asked the authorities concerned to execute the order within 30 days..Barrister Sabrina Zerin and Barrister M Abdul Kaiyum stood for the petitioner and assistant attorney general Abul Kalam Khan Daud represented the state. The court also ordered the home secretary to transfer the case to the speedy trial tribunal and issued a gazette notification within 30 days, said Barrister Abdul Kaiyum. On August 1, a writ petition was filed seeking to transfer of the Sylhet MC College rape case to the speedy trial tribunal. Currently the case is under trial at Sylhet Woman and Child Repression Prevention Tribunal. On August 16, the HC issued a rule asking the government to explain as to why directives should not be given to shift the case to the speedy trial tribunal. Also read: Gang rape at Sylhet MC College: 8 indicted in separate extortion case Gang-rape at MC College According to the case statement, a group of youths tied up a man and raped his 25-year-old wife at a dormitory of MC College on September 25 in 2020. The accused started harassing the 25-year-old as his husband went to a shop in front of MC College, stopping his car. Next, they forcefully took the couple to one of the hostel buildings of the college, where they allegedly committed the crime. After police rescued the couple, the victim’s husband filed a case with Shahporan Police Station against nine people mentioning the names of six and three to four unnamed men. On January 17, 2021, the court separately framed charges against the eight in the gang rape case. On February 7 of the same year, the High Court directed the authorities to run the trial simultaneously in two separate cases filed for gang rape and extortion at MC College. On December 3 in 2020, police pressed charges against the eight accused in the two cases. According to police, they found the direct involvement of six people in the rape while two assisted in the crime. The accused who were directly involved in the crime were Saifur Rahman, Shah Mohammad Mahbubur Rahman Rony, Tariqul Islam Tarek, Arjun Laskar, Mohammad Ainuddin alias Ainul and Misbaul Islam Rajon. Rabiul Islam Hasan and Mahfuzur Rahman Masum were accused of assisting them.  

Police arrested a man on Sunday night for the abduction and rape of a minor girl at Lohagara upazila in Chattogram. The arrestee was identified as Jobair, 26, son of Kaykobad Chowdhury from Adhunagar Chowdhury Para area in the upazila. Police arrested Jobair from Khan Hat railway station after the rape survivor’s family filed a case with police, Md Atiqur Rahman, Officer-in-Charge of Lohagara police station. Read more: Man detained in horrific rape-and-burn case of mute woman According to the case complaint, accused Jobair used to tease the girl often on her way to the madrasah and on November 29, he and his two or three associates abducted her. Jobair allegedly raped the girl several times in a cottage and left the girl at Adhunagar bus stand area on December 2. The arrestee has been produced before court today and the girl is being given treatment at one stop emergency service center at Chattogram Medical College and Hospital.

A 25-year old man was detained on Friday over burning a speech-impaired woman to death after raping her in Keraniganj. The detainee is Sujan, son of Dadan Mia from Shariatpur upazila, said Keraniganj Superintendent of Police Asaduzzaman in a press briefing on Saturday. He said police detained the accused Sujan from Kalapara area in Patuakhali after identifying him from CCTV footage. Sujan used to work in a construction material shop in Keraniganj and formed a romantic relationship with the 35-year old victim who was his neighbor, said SP Asaduzzaman. Read more: Young girl ‘gang raped’ in Cumilla: 5 held On November 28, Sujan took the victim from her house to Subhadda Saban Factory Road area in Keraniganj and raped her several times. At one stage she fell unconscious. Later he set fire to her while she was unconscious and fled from the spot. Police rescued the severely injured woman from the spot after locals spotted the fire and called the national emergency hotline number 999. However she died under treatment at Sheikh Hasina National Institute of Barn and Plastic Surgery the next day. Read more: Rangpur: 5 get life in prison for 2015 rape, murder of teen The victim's sister filed a case in this regard at South Keraniganj police station on November 30. “Sujan confessed to setting fire to the victim after raping her. He will be produced before Dhaka Chief Judicial Magistrate Court on Monday for recording his statement,” said SP Asaduzzaman.