Court Acquits Officers Of Raping Teenage Girl
A court on Monday acquitted four policemen charged with raping a teenage girl who later died.
The 17-year-old garment worker was allegedly gang-raped last October in a police station in Chittagong, 135 miles southeast of Dhaka, the capital.
She had been detained by police who suspected her of being a prostitute, but was never charged. Four months later, the girl died from bleeding en route from jail to a hospital.
In his ruling Monday, a judge in Chittagong said he did not find enough evidence to convict the policemen.
“The government did not work to gather evidence,” said Farida Akthar, a spokeswoman for an alliance of women’s rights groups. “This verdict will make women in Bangladesh more vulnerable to violence.”