DT e-Paper 14 April 2017
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2 News<br />
FRIDAY, APRIL <strong>14</strong>, <strong>2017</strong><br />
<strong>DT</strong><br />
How safe are women on Pohela Boishakh?<br />
• Arifur Rahman Rabbi<br />
and Esha Aurora<br />
After the massive public outcry<br />
over the sexual assault of several<br />
women on Pohela Boishakh in<br />
2015, the government imposed a<br />
cut-off time on celebrations last<br />
year in an attempt to treat the<br />
symptoms of the problem while<br />
overlooking the problem itself.<br />
Similarly this year, a cut-off<br />
time has been declared with all<br />
programmes at Dhaka University<br />
asked to wrap-up by 5pm, as instructed<br />
by Dhaka Metropolitan<br />
Police (DMP).<br />
It has been two years since the<br />
disturbing pictures of around 30<br />
men ripping off womens’ clothing<br />
in broad daylight in Suhrawardy<br />
Udyan surfaced all over social<br />
media. The perpetrators of those<br />
crimes are yet to be brought to<br />
justice, despite their photos being<br />
widely circulated.<br />
The memories of that incident<br />
are still very fresh in most people’s<br />
minds, deterring some women<br />
from going to Dhaka University<br />
premises for Pohela Boishakh celebrations<br />
this year.<br />
“I will not go to see the Mongol<br />
Shobhajatra this year, I still remember<br />
the images of those men tearing<br />
up women’s clothes and touching<br />
them right in front of the police and<br />
they did nothing!” said Jahan Ferdous<br />
Mim, a college student.<br />
The lack of initiative from law<br />
enforcement agencies especially in<br />
the case of sexual harassment is a<br />
big problem in Bangladesh.<br />
Such cases of sexual assault and<br />
harassment are usually treated with<br />
a pinch of salt and peppered with<br />
notes of victim blaming, without<br />
addressing the underlying internalised<br />
patriarchal values that our law<br />
enforcers also operate from.<br />
UNDP had initiated a gender<br />
sensitivity orientation programme<br />
in 2008 called ‘Police Reform Programme<br />
Phase II’ and introduced<br />
the country’s first victim support<br />
Several men surround and assault a woman in the crowd in front of Dhaka University's Teacher Student Centre on Pohela Boishakh in 2015. Despite many clear photos<br />
and CCTV footage, these men have not been apprehended<br />
DHAKA TRIBUNE<br />
centre at Tejgaon Police Station in<br />
Dhaka.<br />
When asked what they had<br />
learned during the programme,<br />
the participating police officials declined<br />
to comment and the Dhaka<br />
Tribune could not independently<br />
verify the extent of their capacity<br />
building training in handling victims<br />
of sexual assault and abuse.<br />
Although CCTV coverage and<br />
police special teams will be used<br />
at Ramna Batamul, Suhrawardy<br />
Udyan, DU and adjoining areas to<br />
help prevent sexual harassment,<br />
mugging and other crimes, women<br />
are still uncomfortable going to<br />
large public gatherings as often justice<br />
eludes the victim even when<br />
the perpetrators are found.<br />
Eti Laila Kazi, a private university<br />
lecturer, told the Dhaka Tribune<br />
she wanted to go to the Pohela<br />
Boishakh celebrations at Dhaka<br />
University but thought against it as<br />
large throngs of people gathered in<br />
one place “always results in some<br />
form of sexual harassment for<br />
women”.<br />
“I don’t want to go because<br />
women will invariably be touched<br />
inappropriately and be sexually<br />
harassed or assaulted and this will<br />
keep on happening unless people<br />
stop viewing women as objects,”<br />
she said.<br />
“Large public gatherings are<br />
always swamped with men touching<br />
you and some kind of verbal or<br />
physical sexual harassment is inevitable<br />
which makes public celebrations<br />
lose their appeal. I wish the<br />
police took this problem seriously<br />
and made an example of some people,”<br />
she said.<br />
Executive Director of Bangladesh<br />
National Woman Lawyers’ Association<br />
(BNWLA), Salma Ali, told<br />
the Dhaka Tribune that exemplary<br />
punishments are needed to deter<br />
further sexual harassment.<br />
“If people are prosecuted under<br />
due process and punished for<br />
the crime, such things could be<br />
deterred. But more often than not<br />
we see law enforcers are unable to<br />
arrest the accused or prevent such<br />
things from happening in public<br />
places,” she said.<br />
DU authorities and student<br />
groups blamed the on-duty law enforcers<br />
for failing to arrest or even<br />
stop the attackers on <strong>April</strong> <strong>14</strong>, 2015.<br />
Some people did step forward<br />
to help, including Bangladesh Students’<br />
Union’s DU chapter President<br />
Liton Nandi, who was injured<br />
while trying to rescue one woman.<br />
“I saw them assaulting a young<br />
woman and she fell on the ground<br />
while the youths were trying to<br />
take off her clothes,” he said.<br />
“As I came forward to rescue<br />
her, they started beating me and I<br />
also fell down and broke my right<br />
arm. Later, I saved the woman and<br />
covered her with my Panjabi.”<br />
Amid a wave of condemnation<br />
on social media at the time,<br />
a meme generating page on Facebook<br />
took up the cause of finding<br />
the perpetrators of the attacks.<br />
They published the photos of<br />
some Chhatra League leaders and<br />
demanded their arrest.<br />
On <strong>April</strong> 21, 2015, the page<br />
claimed that the government’s<br />
high officials had asked them to<br />
stop operations, although none of<br />
the admins responded to questions<br />
regarding this to verify the allegation.<br />
The Administrator of that page,<br />
Refayat Ahmed, was arrested on<br />
December 11, 2015 for anti-state<br />
and anti-government activities. •<br />
Two years on, Pohela Boishakh sexual assaulters still not brought to book<br />
• Md Sanaul Islam Tipu<br />
Police investigating the sexual<br />
harassment of women during the<br />
Pohela Boishakh celebrations at<br />
Dhaka University in 2015 have<br />
identified only one suspect, despite<br />
releasing photographs of<br />
eight others and posting a substantial<br />
reward for information<br />
which might lead to their arrest.<br />
According to witnesses, at least<br />
20 women were sexually assaulted<br />
in an hour by a group of rowdy<br />
youths on the evening of <strong>April</strong> <strong>14</strong>,<br />
2015.<br />
Witnesses alleged that several<br />
police officers were standing<br />
nearby at the time of the incident,<br />
but did nothing to prevent the assaults.<br />
One officer is even said to<br />
have released two of the culprits<br />
who were caught red-handed by<br />
the public.<br />
Police in the first instance denied<br />
having any evidence of sexual<br />
assault and termed the incident<br />
“a mere scuffle”.<br />
In response to the mass public<br />
outcry which followed, Inspector<br />
General of Police AKM Shahidul<br />
Hoque told the media that they<br />
had recognised the faces of eight<br />
people and offered a reward of<br />
Tk 1 lakh for information which<br />
would lead to the arrest of each.<br />
Police also released photos of<br />
the eight suspected youths, who<br />
were captured on CCTV cameras<br />
installed around the scene.<br />
But two years on from the attacks,<br />
the Police Bureau of Investigation<br />
(PBI) has submitted<br />
a charge sheet accusing only one<br />
perpetrator, who is still awaiting<br />
trial.<br />
Detective Branch (DB) of police<br />
were given the responsibility to<br />
investigate the case. After eight<br />
months, the case investigation<br />
officer DB Sub inspector Dipok<br />
Kumar submitted a report before a<br />
Dhaka court in December 13, 2015<br />
which said he had failed to identify<br />
any of the suspects.<br />
But the IO later appealed to the<br />
court seeking the re-opening of<br />
the case following the arrest of a<br />
suspect, identified as Md Kamal,<br />
from Dhaka’s Chawkbazar on January<br />
27, 2016.<br />
Four weeks later, a Dhaka court<br />
directed the PBI for re-investigation<br />
in the case but investigators<br />
again failed to identify the suspects.<br />
On December 20 last year, the<br />
PBI submitted a charge sheet<br />
against the lone arrestee in the<br />
case.<br />
However, Kamal’s counsel Anisur<br />
Rahman told the Dhaka Tribune<br />
that his client is innocent and<br />
was not involved in the assaults.<br />
Dhaka Chief Metropolitan Magistrate’s<br />
court sent the charge sheet<br />
to the Dhaka Women and Children<br />
Repression Prevention Tribunal-3<br />
on January 2, where the charge acceptance<br />
is now pending.<br />
The Special Public Prosecutor<br />
of the tribunal, Mahmuda Aktar,<br />
told the Dhaka Tribune that the<br />
hearing on the charge sheet would<br />
be held on May 2. •