Dhaka, July 7: In a span of nine days, 24 women, including an infant, were raped in Muhammad Yunus-led Bangladesh, according to the Awami League, which added that over 281,000 complaints have piled up and are still “unresolved.”

“In just 9 days, 24 women were raped. Among them, a child was raped by a 60-year-old man. These numbers are horrifying, but each number hides a lifetime of pain and trauma,” said the Awami League on Sunday.

According to the former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s party, “Rapists aren’t strangers — they’re police officers, teachers, politicians, and many roam free, protected by silence and a broken system.”

“Under Yunus’s illegal rule, Bangladesh is no longer a safe place for women. Every day, women are raped while the state stays silent. When survivors seek justice, they’re humiliated again — by police questions, invasive medical exams, courtroom cruelty, and society’s blaming gaze. In court, survivors are shamed for their clothes and character. Cases drag on for years. Social media adds more wounds, as victims’ images spread while rapists remain anonymous,” the Awami League stated.

“Laws alone won’t save us. We need a social revolution. Women must rise, confront, and demand justice. Men must stand with them. Silence is complicity. As long as leaders like Muhammad Yunus remain in power, nothing will change,” it added.

Calling a Bangladeshi woman’s body “a battlefield,” the party said, “Until the state takes responsibility, this bleeding won’t stop. We must challenge the state — or women will never be safe.”

Recently, the Awami League revealed the statistics mentioned that only in June, 63 incidents of rapes were reported, including 17 gang rapes, seven survivors were women/girls with disabilities, while 19 children and 23 teenage girls were raped.

Additionally, 39 cases of sexual harassment and 51 physical assaults on women were reported.

“These aren’t just statistics. They are devastating proof that women and girls in Bangladesh live in constant fear,” said the party.

Last week, addressing a press briefing in Dhaka, Sharmeen S. Murshid, Social Welfare and Women and Children Affairs Advisor of Bangladesh under the interim government, described the rising incidents of violence against women and children in the country as a “pandemic-level crisis.”

The advisor revealed that over the past 10–11 months, 281,000 complaints have been received by the ministry’s toll-free hotline.

“Violence is being committed in families, workplaces, public spaces, and online. Despite Section 14 of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act and the High Court’s directives, victims’ photos are still being published in the media,” Bangladesh’s leading daily, The Dhaka Tribune, quoted the Advisor as saying.

“Though I am a human rights activist, I now support the death penalty for these criminals. The level of violence has exceeded our tolerance,” Sharmeen added.

Bangladesh has been gripped by protest movements, a deteriorating law and order situation and an increasing number of incidents of violence against women since the ouster of Hasina in August 2024, when the Yunus-led administration took the helm.

New Delhi/Washington, July 7: US President Donald Trump’s country-specific tariffs are now scheduled to take effect from August 1, offering a temporary reprieve as trade talks intensified with several countries, including India.

Earlier, the US tariffs were set to take effect from July 9.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced the tariff reprieve on Sunday (US time) while speaking to the media. He noted that President Trump was “setting the rates and the deals right now”.

Trump told reporters that “I think we’ll have most countries wrapped up by July 9, either through letters or finalised agreements”, adding that notification letters warning of upcoming tariff hikes would begin going out from Monday (US time), with more expected to follow on Tuesday.

Trump said that sending notices would be much easier than “sitting down and working 15 different things…this is what you have to pay, if you want to do business with the United States.”

In April, Trump announced a base tariff of 10 per cent on most of America’s trading partners and thereafter additional duties ranging up to 50 per cent.

The US has announced trade deals with the United Kingdom and Vietnam so far, with some more trade deals apparently in the pipeline.

“President Trump’s going to be sending letters to some of our trading partners saying that if you don’t move things along, then on August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level. So I think we’re going to see a lot of deals very quickly,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN.

India’s high-level official delegation led by chief negotiator Rajesh Agrawal has returned from Washington after the trade talks with US officials without reaching a final agreement on the sensitive issue of trade in agricultural and dairy products that the US is pushing for.

Meanwhile, Trump has announced that an additional 10 per cent tariff will be imposed on countries that “align themselves with the anti-American policies of BRICS”.

Mumbai, July 7: Shiv Sena(UBT) on Monday criticised Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ terming party chief Uddhav Thackeray’s speech ‘Rudali (professional mourner)’ in the joint ‘victory rally’ held with Maharashtra Navnirman Sena founder Raj Thackeray.

The rally was held on Saturday here to celebrate what they claim was a victory after the CM revoked two Government Resolutions that had introduced Hindi as a third language in primary schools in the state.

In a blistering attack, the Thackeray camp in the party’s mouthpiece ‘Saamana’ editorial said if CM Devendra Fadnavis thinks that a massive gathering of Marathi people in Mumbai is ‘Rudaali’, then he should continue his ‘Rudaali’. “Fadnavis’ ‘Rudaali’ is not the voice of Maharashtra and Marathi people,” it said.

“There is a type of ‘Rudaali’ in Rajasthan, Haryana, Bundelkhand, Madhya Pradesh, etc. If there is a tragic event like death in someone’s house, women are invited there (to the rich people’s houses) on rent, that is, to cry, beat their chests and wail. They take cash, cry and leave. It is not a tragedy of the state that Fadnavis should compare the Marathi identity that celebrates the ‘Marathi’ victory to women who take money and cry at the time of death,” read the editorial.

The editorial further said, “Fadnavis and his party have huge wealth. This is loot. Therefore, they can afford to hire people to cry, laugh, and applaud Modi’s meetings. A truly self-respecting Marathi man does not get involved in selling his self-respect but he loves the Marathi language, Marathi literature, Marathi history and the masculine element in it.”

The editorial in detail explained the tradition of Maharashtra. “It is associated with poet Govind, who bared his talent against British slavery, with Lokmanya Tilak who wrote hard-hitting editorials against British Rule in Kesari newspaper, poet Vinayak, Swatantryaveer Savarkar, Shivram Mahadev Paranjpe, Kakasaheb Khadilkar, Annabhau Sathe, Shahir Amarshekh, Acharya Atre, and Balasaheb Thackeray, who wounded the enemies of Maharashtra through cartoons and founded the ‘Shiv Sena’ to fight the injustices against the Marathi people,” said the Saamana.

“Since the BJP and its aides do not fit anywhere in this tradition, they are belittling the masculinity of Maharashtra as ‘Rudaali’. Narendra Modi’s ‘Rudaali’ has been going on in the country for the last ten years. Even after coming to power, there will be no other ‘Rudaali’ except targeting Pandit Nehru and Gandhi to cover up their own failures,” claimed the Thackeray camp.