Missing teeth, stolen phone lead to arrest of DU student rape accused

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) on Wednesday arrested the alleged rapist of a Dhaka University student, based on the description given by the victim and by tracking her mobile phone which was snatched by the suspect. 

According to RAB sources, the victim said the rapist was a lean bodied man, aged between 25 and 30, 5 feet 4 inches in height, with short curly hair and missing front teeth.  

RAB tracked down the mobile phone of the victim, which the arrestee took away along with her bag and some other belongings. 

That led RAB to Khairul, 38, a rickshaw-puller. Aruna, a resident of a slum in Shewra area of the capital, had given him the mobile for repair. 

Aruna said, Majnu sold the mobile phone to her on Sunday before he left for Narsingdi. 

Finally, RAB managed to arrest Majnu Miah, 30, from Shewra Rail Crossing area early on Wednesday. He hails from Hatiya upazila of Noakhali. 

In a crowded press conference on Wednesday, RAB Legal and Media Wing Director Lt Col Sarwar Bin Kashem said Majnu is serial rapist who prowled for "vulnerable" women in the Kurmitola area, where the student was raped. 

RAB also said Majnu confessed to being a serial rapist and being involved in many criminal activities including rape, mugging and stealing in the capital's Shewra, Airport, Kamalapur and other areas. 

The law enforcement agency also recovered some other items belonging to the victim from an abandoned railway wagon where Majnu had been staying.  

Officials said they had no CCTV footage or video showing the criminal and had to rely on the description given by the victim and other relevant clues to identify and eventually arrest Majnu.

Majnu had lost two front teeth after he fell from a moving train around 12 years ago.

After the rape, Majnu took the victim's mobile phone, bag and power bank and went straight to Narsingdi railway station on a train that very night. The missing teeth served as an important clue for RAB in arresting the rapist, Sarwar-Bin-Quasem said.

He returned to the capital on Tuesday when he felt safe, said the RAB official.

"He went to Aruna to collect Tk100, which she owed Majnu. Aruna said that Majnu had sold her the phone for Tk400," he added.

During the press conference, Sarwar also said Majnu had confessed that he usually targeted women with disabilities and female beggars.

The RAB officials said Majnu kept at least 6-7 women in an isolated place surrounded by bushes in front of the Kurmitola Golf Club and raped them for several days. He had been using the place for the last six to seven months, but nobody noticed his crimes. 

What happened that day? 

The victim, a second-year student of Dhaka University, was picked up by the rapist after she got down from the bus in Kurmitola on Sunday (January 5) evening. She was then taken to the isolated place, where she was raped and tortured. 

Her rapist left the victim unconscious at the same spot.  

Later, she managed to reach a friend's house by herself when she regained consciousness around midnight. Then her friends took her to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) in the early hours of Monday (January 6).

The victim is now undergoing treatment at the One-Stop Crisis Centre of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.