Justice for Tania: Nurses stage demo in Rajshahi

Hundreds of nurses in Rajshahi today staged demonstration demanding exemplary punishment for the culprits who gang-raped and murdered nurse Shahinoor Akter Tania on May 6.

Nurses’ Association of Rajshahi Medical College Hospital started the demonstration in front of RMCH around 10:00am and blocked the road in front of the hospital in Laxmipur area of the city for an hour.

Moyez Uddin, secretary of the association, told The Daily Star that such heinous crimes are unacceptable in an independent country.

“If we cannot move freely in the country then independence would become meaningless,” he added.

Nurses from other hospitals and students of nursing college also joined the demonstration demanding speedy trial of the culprits.

WHAT HAPPENED TO TANIA?

Shahinoor Akter Tania, who worked at Ibne Sina Hospital’s Kalyanpur branch in Dhaka, died in mysterious circumstances in a passenger bus on her way home in Kishoreganj’s Katiadi upazila on May 6.

Police and family sources earlier told this newspaper that Tania had boarded a Swarnalata Paribahan bus from the capital’s Mohakhali to go to her home in Lohajury in Katiadi around 3:00pm on that day.

The bus reached Katiadi around 8:00pm where all the other passengers got down.

She was the only passenger when the bus was heading towards Pirijpur, from where her home is a 10-minutes rickshaw ride away.

When she did not reach home in time, her family started searching for her. Later, around 11:00pm, they received a call from the Katiadi Upazila Health Complex and learned that Tania died.

Five people including the bus driver Md Nuruzzaman and its helper Lalon Mia are so far held by police for their alleged involvement in the rape and murder of Shahinoor Akter Tania.

According to the autopsy report of the victim, she was gang-raped and murdered.