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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. •

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