Two children raped in Dhaka, Narayanganj

Police have arrested a 55-year-old man from Narayanganj for raping his stepdaughter after responding to a call to 999 helpline.

The accused, Md Jabed Ali aka Shafiq Baburchi, confessed to committing the crime when taken to custody on Thursday night. 

He raped the girl, who works at a local tailoring shop, on Wednesday midnight by stuffing cloth in the mouth and fastening her hands and legs and again on Thursday morning when her mother was away for work, police say.

The girl’s mother, who works as a house help, married Jabed, a cook, last year after her father’s death three years ago. They had since been living in a rented room in Masdair area of Fatullah.  

Fatullah Model police Officer-in-Charge Md Rakibuzzaman said that on Thursday evening, the girl informed her employer about the matter who then contacted the house owner. 

Police got a call from her house owner around 9pm on Thursday and arrested Jabed from the house around 10:30pm. The girl told police that he had previously raped her two weeks ago. 

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In Kamrangirchar, the 12-year-old rape survivor was admitted to the One-Stop Crisis Centre of Dhaka Medical College Hospital on Thursday night.

Her brother Nazmul Islam said a friend had called her to his house on Monday afternoon. She felt sick when she returned home in the evening. Later she told her mother that a named Hridoy, 20, had raped her. 

As her physical condition deteriorated, she was brought to the hospital on Wednesday—but her family took her back fearing police interference. 

On Thursday, her family contacted the police and she was later hospitalized. Kamrangirchar police Inspector Shikder Muhitul Alam said that they were trying to arrest the accused.

Bangladesh has been witnessing a growing number of child rapes in the past few years, with at least 45 children raped in May alone, according to rights group Bangladesh Mahila Parishad.