HC to deliver verdict on MC College gang-rape today

Staff Reporter :
The High Court may deliver its verdict today (Wednesday) on a suo-muto (voluntary) rule over the sensational incident of gang-rape on Murari Chand College campus in Sylhet on September 25, last year.
The HC Bench of Justice Md Mozibur Rahman Miah and Justice Md Kamrul Hossain Mollah will deliver the verdict on the issue today, court sources said.
The Bench issued the ruling over the incident on September 29 last year and concluded the hearing on the ruling on March 11 this year. Following some published reports about the incident, the HC Bench issued the suo-muto rule.
In the ruling, the court asked the respondent to show cause as to why they should not be directed to take appropriate legal steps against the principal and hostel superintendent of the MC college as they are found to have neglected to save an innocent women from the rapists on their campus and as they kept silent so long allowing non-student persons thereon.
The High Court Bench also formed a three-member inquiry committee headed by the Judge of Nari O Shishu Nirjatan Tribunal of Sylhet to conduct an enquiry into the rape incident by taking depositions from the victim, college principal, hostel superintendent, concerned persons and informants who witnessed the incident. The committee submitted its 170-page probe report to the HC bench on October 20 last year, saying that there was negligence on the part of two hostel superintendents, three day-guards, two night-guards.
Principal Prof Mohammad Saleh Ahmed, the head of the institution, also cannot avert his responsibilities, the committee said in its inquiry report, adding that some former and current students of the college had occupied seats in the hostel and Saifur Rahman, a former student, managed to occupy the residence of the hostel superintendent.
Thus, they dared commit the heinous crime on the college campus, the probe report mentioned. In the probe report the committee made 15 recommendations in order to ensure security on the college campus.