Police see it, finally
Police, albeit five days late, admitted that women were sexually assaulted during Pahela Baishakh celebrations in Dhaka University.
“We have noticed [in the CCTV footage] incidents that fall within the definition of sexual assault,” said Monirul Islam, joint commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
He neither could say anything about the perpetrators, their identities nor did he have any arrests to show for.
He, however, asserted that no woman was stripped naked and that no woman had filed any complaints.
The DMP held a press briefing yesterday afternoon in the wake of scathing criticism of law enforcers for doing almost nothing during and after the attacks on women.
Police and Dhaka University authorities had been insisting that the CCTV footage showed no woman being stripped naked.
Police on Friday released footage from two of the 19 CCTV cameras installed for security in the area.
The Daily Star examined one hour footage of one camera and ended up taking 50 screenshots of women being groped and chased by the youths.
Police yesterday provided journalists with footage from six more cameras. The videos were shot between 5:00pm and 7:00pm on Pahela Baishakh.
CCTV camera-16 apparently covered the area in which a woman was claimed to have been almost stripped naked. Liton Nandi, president of the Dhaka University unit of Bangladesh Chhatra Union, had rescued the woman and had given her the Punjabi he was wearing. He broke his arm while trying to rescue another woman.
Footage of CCTV camera-16 was not released by police.
Reports published a day after Pahela Baishakh mentioned that there were at least 20 victims of sexual assault. But the footage examined by The Daily Star suggested that the number could be many times more.
The camera, the video of which this paper examined, was installed on an electricity pole along a pavement close to Suhrawardy Udyan. It covered an area between the northern side of Raju Bhashkarja and the street there.
A number of youths were seen in the area groping women every few minutes between 6:22pm and 7:19pm. They were in groups and at times they were attacking several women at once.
The women were trapped, surrounded and ganged up on.
In most cases, a perpetrator is seen posing as a gentleman. He first lets an obstructed woman through but his cohorts then instantly surrounds the woman. Then the groping by almost a dozen youths begins, the footage showed.
Sometimes the gang blocks a couple or a family from two sides and then assaults while their cohorts blow plastic horns to drown out the screams.
Sub-Inspector of Shahbagh Police Station, Abul Kalam Azad, who filed a case over the assault, was unwilling to call the youths molesters.
“Most likely the youths are related to the girls,” said Azad, adding, “Above all no woman has complained of being sexually assaulted.”
Police have already closed sub-inspector Ashraful Islam in connection with letting go of a perpetrator after he was handed over.
The decision to close him came after it was revealed by the footage that police were called in and they even caught one of the perpetrators on the spot.
Asked, DMP Joint Commissioner Munirul said they were working on releasing the suspects' photos taken from screenshots of the footage.
According to him, a separate committee was formed to probe alleged negligence in duty by police.
“The Raju Bhashkarja roundabout and its adjacent areas were under extensive watch and we should be able to find every single perpetrator,” said Assistant Commissioner (Ramna) Shiblee Noman.
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