PETALING JAYA: Mother of two Jumana Aziz Ahmad looks at her two young children and shudders. She fears the rising number of reports of young people in Malaysia being attacked and raped. For her, it is close to home, which is why she is angered at what she said was a lenient sentence given to a Bangladeshi man for raping a 12-year-old mentally disabled girl in Selangor last year. “The man should have been sentenced to life in prison for this crime,” she told Bikyamasr.com at her three bedroom flat in Petaling Jaya. “What more can we do now. “I just think that if a man violently attacks a young girl and rapes her, he should be in prison for life. 13 years for this crime feels like a slap on the wrist,” she added. A Malaysian court sentenced a Bangladeshi man to 13 years in prison and five canings for raping a mentally challenged student last year, court officials confirmed to Bikyamasr.com. According to the court, judge Yasmin Abdul Razak leveled the sentence on the man, referred to as Mamun, 31, after arguing his defense team had failed to raise reasonable doubts against the prosecution's case. Mamum was ordered to serve the sentence from the date of his arrest on Feb 16, 2011. The Bangladeshi car washer was charged with raping the girl, then only 12-years-old, at a vacant shop in Selangor on February 14, 2011. Ahmad's neighbor, Guian, a mother of a 14-year-old deaf girl, told Bikyamasr.com that “she finds the court ruling disgusting and unimaginable.” For her, with her daughter's situation, “the disabled in this country deserve better and for the court to make this sentence it shows that we still have a long way to go before cracking down on and ending rape of our young people.” They are not alone. Across the country on Tuesday many women voiced their concern that the sentence was not lengthy enough to show a deterrent. “I believe that our courts are doing an all right job, but they should have at least doubled the sentence in this case,” added Ahmad.
