A special court in India has sentenced seven Bangladeshi men, including notorious human-trafficking suspect Rifadul Islam aka Ridoy Babo, to life-term rigorous imprisonment for sexually assaulting a fellow countrywoman.
On Friday, the court also sentenced another Bangladeshi woman to 20 years in prison and another Bangladeshi man to five years in the same case, reports bdnews24.com citing The Indian Express and The Times of India.
The case was filed in May last year after the video of the assault had gone viral and made national headlines in India.
The six others who have received life-term imprisonment are Chand Miya, Mohammed Alamin Hossien, Rakibul Islam, Mohammed Babu Sheik, Mohammed Dalim and Azim Hossain.
Taniya Khan had received 20 years’ imprisonment while Mohammed Jamal was sentenced to five years in jail. Two other women were sentenced to nine months in prison.
The 22-year-old victim, who had later been identified as a Bangladeshi, was subjected to horrific sexual assaults by the 12 perpetrators, according to the prosecution.
The incident prompted Indian Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju to issue a manhunt for the perpetrators- 11 Bangladeshi nationals and one Indian- via a tweet, urging the public to help police to nab the accused.
Bengaluru police later arrested all of them. Due to national attention, a special prosecutor was appointed and the police filed a chargesheet in a record 28 day.
In the chargesheet, the Bengaluru police indicted the 11 Bangladeshi nationals, who had entered India illegally, for running a trafficking ring. The suspects, the police said, lured young Bangladeshi women on the pretext of employment and later forced them into prostitution.
The victim, according to the chargesheet, was gang-raped by the perpetrators for declining to work as a prostitute.
Ridoy was known to many in Dhaka’s Moghbazar as TikTok Ridoy for his activities on the video-sharing app. The father of the victim from the same area filed a case against Ridoy and unidentified others on charges related to human trafficking and pornography at Hatirjheel Police Station.
Police said a number of youths who were trying to become TikTok stars created a Facebook group, which was later used for trafficking in humans with the support of an international ring.
The father told police about how Ridoy had lured the victim to migrate to Dubai, where her husband works. Despite the father’s repeated warnings, the woman had remained adamant and eventually left home, ending up in India.
