Verdict in Raintree hotel rape case deferred again

A Dhaka court has again deferred the delivery of the verdict in a case filed over the alleged rape of two university students at the Raintree hotel in the city.

Dhaka Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal-7 Judge Begum Mosammat Kamrunnahar was supposed to deliver the verdict today, Wednesday (October 27) but today’s lower court activities have remained suspended due to the death of veteran lawyer Abdul Baset Majumder, according to the tribunal’s Public Prosecutor Afroza Farhana Orange.

The judge, however, is yet to set a new date for delivering the verdict in the case, said Afroza Farhana Orange.

Defendants in the case are Shafat Ahmed, the son of an Apan Jewellers co-owner, Shafat’s friend Shadman Sakif, a director of Regnum Group, Nayem Ashraf, an employee of E-Makers Event Management, Shafat's driver Billal Hossain and bodyguard Rahmat Ali.

On October 3, ahead of the verdict, the court rejected their bail and sent them to jail.

It is to be mentioned that a case was filed against five persons with Banani Police Station on May 6, 2017, for allegedly raping the two students of a private university in Dhaka at gunpoint at a “birthday party” on March 28 of that year at the Raintree Hotel in the capital’s Banani.