Young Woman Raped in Chattogram, Key Suspect Arrested

A young woman, aged around 18, was raped while searching for accommodation in Chattogram. The incident took place at about 11:00pm on Thursday in the Shikalbaha area under Karnaphuli Police Station in Chattogram.

The victim’s family filed a rape case with the police station on Friday night.

The accused are — Md Akash, Omar Faruq, Md Soleman, Md Raju, Md Nazmun, Md Jobaid, and Md Asif. Md Akash, 19, the main suspect, has been arrested while the others are absconding. All the accused are from the Shikalbaha union area. Officer-in-charge of Karnaphuli Police Station, Zahir Hossain, confirmed the details. He informed that the victim’s grandmother filed the case against seven individuals.

The police arrested the main suspect and were trying to arrest the other accused, the OC said. The victim, originally from Pekua upazila in Cox’s Bazar, had traveled to Karnaphuli from Pekua on Thursday in search of a job. According to the case statement, she met a Mahindra driver named Md Shawkat in the Moijjartek area of Karnaphuli that afternoon. She asked Shawkat to help her finding a rented house in Karnaphuli. Shawkat, along with two women he knew, accompanied the young woman to Shikalbaha to look for accommodation.

At about 10:30 pm, when they reached the Billapara area in Shikalbaha, the accused assaulted them and forcibly took the victim into an auto-rickshaw. They then took her behind a local school where she was raped by them.

Local people informed police about the incident. Police rescued the victim from the crime scene and later arrested the main suspect, Akash.

UNB