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Post-polls Attacks in Jessore

Rishipara victims reel from shock

2 arrestees confess planned attack, rape of 2 Hindu women

PINAKI ROY and MOKAMMEL SHUVO
They did not even cast votes in January 5 polls. Yet they got the "punishment for voting" -- they were gang-raped.
The victims belong to two Rishi families who had built their houses four years back at a corner of the Hazrail village in Monirampur upazila, Jessore.
The families are relatives and traditionally, their profession is weaving baskets with bamboos or canes and making leather goods.
These correspondents talked with them during a visit to Rishipara in Hazrail on Wednesday afternoon.
One of the victims is still in trauma. According to her mother-in-law, "She is so scared that she cannot sleep without somebody holding her."
The husband of another victim is too distressed to go to work. He is also feeling insecure. "There should be a permanent police camp in our village," he said.
"Yes," his wife couldn't agree more. "The repression on us will never end and such a police camp is necessary as long as we are alive. ' The couple married just four months back.
The families were all busy dismantling their huts as they decided to move to their relative's house.
“Maybe someday we would have to leave the country," said the father of one of the rape victims.
On January 5, they were going to Katakhali High School polling centre but came back following bomb blasts near the school. The polling was postponed. "Actually, we could not vote," he said.
However, some other families of the community had voted, locals said.
BNP-Jamaat leaders and supporters at a meeting at Dhakuria bazaar on January 7 decided to "punish” the Rishi community, reads the confessional statements of two detained suspects Shahabuddin Shihab and Mofizur Rahman.
The BNP-Jamaat alliance had boycotted the election.
As per the meeting decision, a gang of nine divided into two stormed Rishipara around 1:30am, said Shihab, a BNP supporter.
Shihab, Mofiz, Saiful, Sohrab and Ilias went to a house and raped a woman after beating and tying up the males. Rezaul, Siddique, Abu Taher and Alim did the same in another house. They were carrying sharp weapons.
The Daily Star has obtained a copy of the confession, given before Senior Judicial Magistrate Amirul Islam of Jessore.
Mofiz in his statement also named Uttam, a Rishipara resident now in detention, as one of the accomplices.
But villagers say Mofiz, a local loan shark, intentionally framed Uttam, who owe him some money.
Monirampur police on January 10 recorded a case in connection with the rape. Other members of the gang are yet to be arrested.
Jessore Superintendent of Police Joydeb Bhodro said two arrested suspects had given confessional statements and justice for the rape incident will be done now.