Lone accused in Kalabagan teen rape, murder case lands in jail

The lone accused in a rape and murder case, also a friend of the victim, Fardin Iftekhar Dihan (18) landed in jail Friday after giving confessional statement in a Dhaka court.

Kalabagan police produced the O-level student before the court, while Dhaka Metropolitan Magistrate Mamunur Rashid recorded his statement, said Abul Hasan, assistant commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

He said the investigating officer of the case appealed with the court for recording the statement as the accused agreed to confess "voluntarily". After recording Dihan's statement, the magistrate sent him to jail.

The victim's father filed a case on Friday under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, accusing Dihan.

According to the case statement, the victim's parents left home for work on Thursday morning. Around noon, the girl called her mother telling her that she was going to a friend's home to bring some study materials.

In the evening, Dihan brought the girl to Anwar Khan Modern Hospital in a critical condition, and the on-duty doctors later pronounced the teenager dead.

Before that, Dihan had called the girl's mother and said she was taken to hospital since she had fainted after arriving at his residence.

The mother then rushed to the hospital where the duty doctor informed her that her daughter was "murdered after rape".

The victim's father mentioned in the case, "I learned that the accused took my daughter to his residence deceptively. Taking the advantage of an empty flat, he raped my daughter. When she fell sick, the accused took her to hospital to divert the incident to a different direction."

The case statement said police caught Dihan and three others from the hospital on Thursday evening. The three friends of the prime accused were released after interrogation.

Professor Dr Sohel Mahmud, head of the Forensic Medicine Department of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, said the autopsy report suggests that she was the victim of violent sexual abuse.

"The girl died from excessive bleeding through the vagina and rectum. It is called hypovolemic shock," he said while briefing the press.

Hypovolemic shock, also known as low-volume shock, is a dangerous condition which happens when an individual suddenly loses a lot of blood or fluids from the body. It is categorised as a life-threatening emergency.

"Though we found internal wounds in her private parts, there was no external wound on her body suggesting any tussle," he said.

The doctor, however, did not give any conclusive statement whether the girl was raped.

He also told reporters that they collected samples for conducting DNA tests to determine whether she was gang raped or not.

"Police also asked us to figure the exact age of the deceased," he added.