I met Smriti Kona Biswas a couple of times — first when I was working on an article on CHT and I was meeting a friend of hers for information. The next time I met her I was doing a story on lead pollution. A Fulbright scholar, Dr Amal Mitra, wanted to carry out a survey on the level of lead in the blood of Bangladeshi children. Her NGO, Society to Uplift Social Harmony (SUSH) helped Dr. Mitra carry out the survey on schools in some parts of Bangladesh, including the night school that was part of her organisation.

Later I came to know that this Smriti Kona was the same person who was brutally gang-raped in 1995 (when she was a college student) by a notorious gang of miscreants who used to haunt the campus of Barisal’s Brojmohon University College (BM College). The only thing that saved Smriti Kona’s life was that the incident, which took place in an abandoned building inside the college, was spotted by someone who informed the college authorities who rushed in and caught them. The culprits received 10 years rigorous imprisonment each.

Winning the court battle was not the end of the story though. She faced constant prejudice from society. Only after getting admission into Dhaka University did she get some peace of mind. Her organisation SUSH is an attempt to help women like her, who are struggling to earn a place for themselves in this cruel society. Unfortunately, her organisation is in trouble. Read all about it here.