Woman gang-raped, minor son murdered

A woman was gang-raped after abduction, her minor son was killed and his body dumped in a pond in Gangachhara upazila in Rangpur district on Thursday. Abdul Mannan, officer in charge (OC) of Gangachhara Model Police Station, said the victim, a 30-year-old woman told police that her neighbour Hasan Ali, 28, led the attack and the gang-rape. She alleged that Hasan Ali had been sexually harassing her for a while now. The victim and her family members said a gang of miscreants, led by Hasan Ali, stormed into their house and abducted her along with her three-year-old son. The miscreants dragged them to a maize field nearby where they took turns to rape her. As her minor son started to cry, the criminals strangulated him to death in front of his mother and dumped the body in a pond. The body of the boy was later recovered from a pond nearby by Gangachhara police station. The victim and her relatives further alleged that Hasan, a wayward man, had tried to rape her once before when her husband was away from home. However, she was able to raise a hue and cry and neighbours came to her rescue,’ they said. At the time villagers caught Hasan red-handed but his cronies managed to rescue him, they said. The OC said police is trying to arrest those involved with the abduction, rape and murder, according to a news agency.