Another rape accused was found dead in Jhalakathi yetsreday, with a note hanging around his neck. The body of the accused in a gang-rape case, Rakib Hossain Molla, was found at a brick kiln at Angaria village in Rajapur upazila.  He had a bullet injury to the right side of his chest. Rakib is the second accused in the case to be found dead with a note hung around his neck. The note read, “I am Pirojpur Bhandaria’s…. rapist Rakib. This is the fate of rapists. Rapists beware -- Hercules.” Rakib was accused in the gang rape of a tenth grader madrasa student on January  

12. Officer-in-Charge of Rajapur Police Station (Investigation) Md Mainuddin said locals found the body and informed police. It was later sent to Sadar Hospital for an autopsy, he said. Mainuddin said they were in the dark about the killer.

The body of the other accused in the same case was recovered on January 26 from a garden at Binapani village in Kathalia upazila. Sajal Jomaddar's body had three gunshot wounds - one to the chest and two to his head.

A handwritten placard, found with the body, said he was the mastermind of the gang rape.

Police said Sajal and associates abducted a grade X student while she was going to her relative's home in Hetalbunia on January 12. They took her to a betel leaf garden and raped her. A case was filed accusing Sajal on January 14.

Meanwhile, on January 17, police recovered the bullet-hit body of Ripon, 39, another prime accused in a similar case of gang rape case, from Amin Model Town. Ripon's body also had a similar message on a placard tied around his neck which read: aI'm the mastermind of the gang- rape case.”

Ripon was the prime accused in a case filed over the death of a garment worker after she was gang-raped. Ripon and four of his associates intercepted the female RMG worker, an employee at Yagi Garments where Ripon was a line manager, while she was returning home from work at Beron in Ashulia on January 5. She died at home two days later.