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Outrage over rape of 2 girls in city

Zyma Islam and Shaheen Mollah
The gang-rape of two minor working girls by a bus driver and his associates in the capital has caused outrage among rights activists and labour leaders.
The girls, aged 13 and 14, were fooled and trapped by the driver and the helper of a bus they were travelling in and gang-raped overnight in Kamalapur on Friday in the second such incident in the country since the Delhi bus rape incident that shook the world in 2012. In January last year, a garment worker was raped on a moving bus in Manikganj.
This shocking revelation happened when police brought the girls to the One-Stop Crisis Centre (OCC) in Dhaka Medical College Hospital Saturday evening.
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Dr Bilkis Begum, chief of the OCC which conducted their medical examinations, has confirmed that both the girls were gang-raped.
Two of the rapists, including the driver, have been arrested while the other two are on the run. They all were staff of Labbaik Paribahan and they used the transport company's office for this vile purpose.
Driver Ahmed Sheikh, who was kept at Demra Police Station lock-up, described to this correspondent in horrifying detail how they had cunningly taken advantage of the girls' gullibility and inflicted on them the nightmarish ordeal.
"The girls were going to Savar to stay out the night at the house of an aunt of one of the girls. When we reached Savar, we emptied our passenger load but told the girls they had not reached their destination yet," said Ahmed.
"And then we turned the bus back. When we came to Gulistan, we told the girls that the bus would not be going to Savar anymore. We offered to drop them off in a CNG. But we actually were planning to take them to our office," he went on.
It was around 11:00 at night and the girls had no choice but to accept the offer.
Instead of going to Savar, the CNG auto-rickshaw brought the girls along with the bus driver and his assistant to the Kamalapur office of Labbaik Paribahan.
The office was located on the third floor of a five-story building known as the Singer building, opposite the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Kamalapur Railway Station right on the main road. Showrooms of Singer Electronics are on the ground, private offices on the second while the third
floor is shared by the Labbaik office and a residential unit.
"We brought them to our office and asked them to keep quiet and told them that we would take them home in the morning," Ahmed went on. The girls were too scared and helpless to not comply.
They sneaked the girls into the building while the watchman, who guards a number of other business outlets lined up on the road, was away, and took them upstairs to their office where three more of their staff lying in wait.
Then, four of them took their turns raping the girls, while the other watched.
Around 4:00am in the morning, guard Humayun Chowdhury suddenly saw a crying girl come towards him.
"I was astounded to see such a young girl seemingly appear out of nowhere this early morning. The gate was locked and I was guarding it. So, I asked her where she came from," Humayun told The Daily Star.
The girl, the younger of the victims, then told him what had happened and how cleverly she had made it out. The girl told her rapists that she needed to use the bathroom and then crawled her way out through the third floor window and climbed down the water pipes, the guard said.
"She told me that the rapists were sharpening kitchen cleavers which scared her. They were probably contemplating to kill the girls and then cut up their bodies into pieces for disposal," said Humayun. "She kept imploring me to save her friend who was still trapped inside the office."
Upon seeing that she had alerted the watchman, the rapists released the other girl and tried to put the two on a rickshaw home but the guard intervened.
"I took the girls into my custody.
Then I called up the Mugda Police Station and told them what had happened", said Humayun.
Humayun also alerted workers of the ICD who chased the three staff who had come down to find the girl, and they fled the spot.
Police arrived at the scene, broke through the locked door of the office and arrested driver Ahmed Sheikh and helper Hasnain from there.
When The Daily Star asked them why they had committed such a heinous crime, the rapists replied nonchalantly, "Because they were alone."
A Dhaka court placed the duo on a two-day remand each in a case filed with the Mugda Police Station in this connection.
Meanwhile, the mother of a victim broke down in tears while talking to these correspondents at the OCC. "They are calling her a bad girl because she was out of home that late in the evening. They are chastising me for letting her go outside and work in the factory."
"Her life is finished, everything is over," cried the woman.
Salma Ali, executive director of Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers Association, demanded that both the culprits and bus authorities be punished. "The bus associations are responsible for making public transports safer for women. But buses are as of yet one of the most major places where women are sexually violated."
"Girls are taking a bold move by joining the workforce and these poor girls have no choice but to use public transports. Everyone starting from the society to the government must feel outraged at this event," said Kalpana Akhter, executive director of Bangladesh Centre for Workers' Solidarity.