Police arrested seven people, including the hotel manager, in connection with the incident.

The arrestees are Alim Hossain, 22, Mohammad Rifat, 19, Mohammad Emon Islam, 20, Rony, 20, Barek, 22, Nayan, 22, and Nur Uddin, 38, manager of Jalsha Hotel.

Sumon Banik, officer-in-charge (investigation) of Sitakundu Model Police Station, said the victim from Mirsarai upazila met Nayan a month ago in a marriage ceremony and developed a relationship with her.

On Saturday, Nayan asked the girl to come to Sitakunda.

After visiting a tourist spot there, Nayan along with friends took the girl to the hotel in the name of taking rest.

Later, they confined the girl to a room of the hotel and raped her thrice.

Around 10 am, Nayan went out of the hotel for food only to come back with five more youths and raped the girl till 1:30am.

The girl, however, managed to flee the hotel around 2pm.

As the girl informed police on Monday morning about the shocking incident, police arrested seven people conducting drives at different parts of the upazila.

A process is underway to file a case, said the OC.

Bangladesh in shock

Describing rapists as 'beasts', Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday said the government has to induct the death sentence in the relevant law to save girls from these beasts.

"The rapists are [like] beasts as they exhibit their inhumane nature affecting our girls … we’ve amended the law and included capital punishment for rape…we’ve cleared the amendment [proposal] in the cabinet," she said.

The Sitakunda incident took place at a time when some recent rape incidents and horrific violence against women triggered nationwide protests.  

A video footage of five men gang-raping a housewife, stripping her naked and filming the video of the incident in Noakhali’s Begumganj upazila sparked waves of anti-rape demonstrations across Bangladesh this week.

Protesters including students, leaders and activists of different organisations staged demonstrations over the last week over the growing incidents of rape, sexual harassment and violence against women.

Amid widespread protests against the growing incidents of rape in the country, the government has planned to enact a law with a provision of death penalty as the highest punishment for the heinous crime.

The Cabinet on Monday approved the draft of the Women and Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Bill, 2020 in this regard.

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