Mrs. Sheekha Rani Roy is assistant head teacher of Akubpur Yakub Ali Bhuyan Public High School, Bangra Bazar Police Station, Muradnagar, Cumilla, Bangladesh. She has been working at this school in this position since August 25, 2012. She is a very sincere and dedicated teacher that has been working at the school for over 12 years. She is a Hindu by religion that are minority population in Muslim majority Bangladesh.
On September 17, 2024, a mob of about 35 Muslim men and one Hindu man under the leadership of the school headmaster Billal Hussein along with some students violently attacked Mrs. Shikha Rani Roy. They launched a barbaric mental, physical, and sexual torture on her just for her being a Hindu religious minority. The extent of the torture was so cruel for over a period of four long hours that she lost her conscious and fainted twice. Yet the attackers just did not stop there. They paraded her in the streets humiliating and torturing her further and then tearing apart her blouse and assaulting her sexually. NOTE that the leader of the attack Billal Hossein is the father of Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuiyan, an Advisor to Dr. Yunus led Government.
Mrs. Roy has been suffering from serious physical injuries and shock trauma due to the extreme torture. Physically, she is suffering from head pain, chest pain, heart palpitation, general full body pain and weakness, back pain, and constant pain in left leg. MRI of her leg has revealed that she has nerves injured. Psychologically, she is afflicted with nightmares and unable to sleep at night even after taking sleeping pills. She feels being tortured again by the attackers as soon as she falls asleep that wakes her up.
Mrs. Roy is undergoing medical treatment with a hope to heal. She has not been able to resume her school job due to the severe health problem.
On September 21, 2024 after regaining some physical strength, victim Mrs. Sheekha Rani Roy filed a police case (S.D.I.R# 2258) to the local police officer in-charge at Bangra Bazar Police Station, Muradnagar, Cumilla. The next day on September 22, 2024, she submitted a written petition to the Cumilla district Additional Superintendent of Police urging proper legal and all proper actions resolving the case.
The English translation of the police case (S.D.I.R# 2258) submitted by victim Mrs. Sheekha Rani Roy with the details of the tortures endured by her for over 4 hours and accusing 15 named men and 20 unknown men as below:
On March 14, 2021, a number of people under the leadership of Mohammad Billal Hossein filed a legal case against by bringing some false allegation of corruption against me and dismissed me from my teaching job. After a lengthy investigation against my case, the investigators submitted their investigation report to Cumilla Secondary & Higher Secondary Education Board. Then the Education Board reinstated me in my original teaching position based on the direction of their Appeal & Arbitration Board. Accordingly, I re-joined the school as the assistant head teacher on May 12, 2024 and have been working very sincerely as a dedicated teacher.
However, Mohammad Billal Hossein along with a few other members of the school committee resumed their conspiracy against me to remove her from the school.
On Tuesday, September 17, 2024 at 8:22 AM, Mohammad Billal Hossein called my mobile phone from a phone number 01309-105986 and directed me to go to the school to participate in the discussion of newly received Tk. 20 lakh school development fund. I went to school in a timely manner in the morning and entered the Teachers Room. I then noticed that Shimul Billal was conducting a meeting with the 14 involved teachers and the local chairman in the head master’s room located next to the Teachers Room.
After I sat down, all the 15 accused entered the Teachers Room and forcefully grabbed the mobile phones from all the teachers including mine. They then forced me to unlock my phone, took a look at my personal photos and documents and then kept my phone with them.
Around 12-12:30 PM, three of the named attackers Salauddin Khan, Md. Shahin Mia, and Abul Kalam Azad in the presence of the remaining named attackers provocated some innocent students that I was a Hindu religious minority teacher asking them to attack me. The students forcefully confined me in my room, pressured and physically tortured me ordering me to sign my resignation letter. I became unconscious and fainted after about 2 hours of being continuously physically tortured by the students. They then brought me to conscious by spreading water on my face.
It was around 2:30 PM by then. They then took out the students from the room. All the listed 15 attackers (listed as #1 to 15) along with some outsider terrorists entered the room and locked the room from inside. They then started verbally threatening me and asked me to sign the resignation letter. As I still refused to sign my resignation, they threatened that they would remove all my clothes and take video of my naked body and release it in public if I did not sign.
At this point the attackers (listed as #2, 3, 4, 5) namely Shimul Billal, Salauddin Khan, Abdus Sattar, and Habibul Bashar started sexually torturing me by touching my private parts while the remaining attackers started violently punching me all over me. I lost my conscious and fainted again due to violent torture. They brought me to conscious by spreading water on my face. The men failed to get me sign the resignation letter even after violently torturing me for 2 more hours.
They then threatened me that they would kill me, convert me to Muslim, and release my naked video in public if I dare to disclose or file a complaint or case anywhere about this attack. They then grabbed Tk. 2,000 cash and Janata Bank Companyganj branch check book for the school salary account from my hand bag, and forced me to sign in a blank paper.
After that, the listed attacker #1 named Mohammad Billal Hossein took me outdoor, and led a street procession on foot with me being surrounded by students and the attackers humiliating me publicly from the school to the local Aamtali bazar. I have collected the video of this procession. Billal Hussein then put me in an auto-rickshaw there. During this time the listed attackers ( #6,7, 9, 15) namely Jalal Mia, Mohiuddin, Sadekur Rahman and Kabir Hussien sexually violated me once again the rickshaw by touching my private parts and tearing apart my blouse and kicked me from behind. The listed attacker #8 namely Rajib Banik threatened me that he would publicly rape me and spread the rape video across social media to enforce my resignation. It can be noted that all these violent tortures happened in the presence of the listed attackers (#10, 11, 12) namely Nannu Mia, Mobarak Khan, and Md. Shahin Mia.
Being injured, I went to Debidwar Upazilla Health Complex and received treatment later on the same fateful day. Afterwards, I tried to contact the local police station once I recovered a little with a hope to get justice.
This is the end of this petition and is signed by the victim at the end of the petition.
The petition submitted to the Cumilla district Additional Superintendent to be translated and added here soon.
Victims: Mrs. Sheekha Rani Roy, her family, and All Bangladeshi Hindus
Location of attack: Aakubpur Yakub Ali Bhuyan Public High School, Bangra Bazar Police Station, Muradnagar, Cumilla, Bangladesh
Date of attack: September 17, 2024
News media report:
Social media report links:
- YouTube: JBS Times published on Sep 25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDaG4ZzEGc4
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?mibextid=qi2Omg&v=3745278042360655&rdid=xkMGqp1D2bU9wGr6