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The Bangladesh Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday approved a legal amendment to elevate the maximum punishment in rape cases to death from life imprisonment.
Following the Cabinet’s approval of the proposed amendment, titled the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act, President Abdul Hamid is likely to issue an ordinance as Parliament is not in session, said Cabinet Secretary Khandaker Anwarul Islam.
The approval comes in the wake of protests staged by different organisations at Dhaka’s Shahbagh square and other parts of the country against sexual assaults on a woman in Noakhali and the rape of another woman in Sylhet’s MC College.
“The ordinance will be issued tomorrow,” says Law Minister Anisul Huq.