Lawmakers of both ruling and opposition parties have expressed frustrations in parliament over the alarming rise in incidents of rape in recent times and called law enforcers to kill perpetrators in "crossfire".
In an unscheduled discussion at the House session on Tuesday (Jan 14), they also called for amending the law incorporating the death penalty as the maximum sentence of life term has failed to curb the crime.
"The person, who has been identified as a rapist, has no right to live anymore," ruling MP Tofail Ahmed said.
If actions like "crossfire" are used to deal for narcotics case, then "why can't we do the same for the incident of rape", said the veteran Awami League leader.
Incidents of rape have turned into an epidemic in recent times, opposition Jatiya Party MP Kazi Firoz Rashid told the house before adding, "Encounter is must rid the society of rape. [Perpetrators] should be shot dead."
Pointing to the much-talked-about rape incident of a Dhaka University student and a garment worker at Dhamrai, he said: “When you will go to court to try the rapist, you will not find any witness. Therefore, you will have to go for an encounter to get rid of the rape from society.”
Pointing to human rights activists [who talked against killing in encounter], Firoz said, “You would have to understand [the pain of rape] if you or your mother or sister became a victim of rape.”
Citing an example of a gang rape incident on a bus in Tangail, Riroz said further incidents of rape didn’t occur, had those rapists in Tangail incident were killed in the “crossfire”.
He also said incidents of 10 to 12 crossfire of rapists would decrease the incident of rape.
“The only remedy to stop rape is killing rapist in the “crossfire” after taking their confessional statement
Jatiya Party MP Mujibul Haque Chunnu, who raised the issue at Tuesday's session, said that 2019 saw the highest number of incidents of rape in a single year.
"Only life terms are not, the provision of the death penalty should be incorporated into the law," he said.
Referring to the home minister, the opposition MP said, “You are putting people to “crossfire” as part of the fight against narcotics. But why is there not a single instance of “crossfire” in case of rape incidents?”
Bangladesh Tarikat Federation MP Syed Nazibul Bashar Maizvandary echoed. “I can assure say you will go to heaven if you kill rapist in the crossfire."