If this is not sexual assault, what is?

The CCTV footage that police released yesterday clearly shows multiple incidents of sexual assault on women by rowdy men during the Pahela Baishakh celebrations on the Dhaka University campus.

The footage at 6:31:27pm shows a girl wearing a red dress is surrounded by a group of four to five youths so that she cannot move. The youths then start groping her.

Within seconds, 10 to 15 more men encircle her, each trying to grab her. She is seen in the footage until 6:32:55pm, being assaulted all the while. 

Still, police claim the footage does not offer any evidence of sexual assault.

Jahangir Alam Sarker, acting deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star that what happened was “some jostling”, not sexual assault.

“So far, we have not seen in the footage any woman being stripped off,” he added.

According to him, the media exaggerated the matter.

The two hours' footage from two cameras that police gave to journalists, however, paints a sordid picture.

And this footage is not even of the Suhrawardy Udyan entrance opposite the TSC, the spot where more severe incidents of sexual assault reportedly took place. It is mainly from the cameras that covered the road in front of the entrance.

The Daily Star has been able to take from the footage at least 50 snaps that show several women being molested by certain groups of youths between 6:22pm and 7:19pm, according to the camera clock.

It also shows a number of other women being squeezed by some men, giving thumbs up apparently to someone not seen in the footage.

At 6:30pm, a youth is seen at the hands of three people, apparently plainclothes cops with one of them carrying a walkie-talkie. Around the same time, some policemen in uniform are seen charging batons to disperse the attackers in vain.   

Most of these youths were wearing panjabis.

Following Tuesday's incident, the print and electronic media reported that a group of 30 to 40 men molested more than 20 women for over an hour.

Reports also mentioned that a rescuer, Liton Nandi, president of Bangladesh Chhatra Union's Dhaka University chapter, gave his panjabi to a victim whose dress was ripped at places.

The footage obtained by this paper does not show this incident, but that is no proof that it did not happen because the footage are from cameras that watched the footpaths along the Suhrawardy Udyan. 

According to police, about 100 CCTV cameras were installed in the area as part of their security preparation. Some 19 cameras were installed around the Suhrawardy Udyan alone.

In other parts of the footage, women are seen running away from molesters or walking in the embrace of their male companions from fear of being harassed. One woman is found pursuing a molester pointing her finger at the direction the man fled.

But let alone mentioning that they had got hold of one alleged perpetrator, police until yesterday did not even admit that five alleged culprits were handed over to them.

Tuhin Kanti Das, general secretary of DU Chhatra Union, repeatedly claimed to have handed over two perpetrators to a Sub-inspector named Ashraful Islam.

Ibrahim Khan, an additional deputy commissioner of DMP, for the first time yesterday admitted that someone indeed handed over one perpetrator to Ashraf. 

“Ashraf had left the perpetrator in the charge of the man who caught him as he [Ashraf] had to go somewhere on the order of his superviser,” said Ibrahim.

Ashraf returned to find the molester gone.

Incidents of fistfights, apparently when someone tried to resist the molesters, are also seen in the clips.

Police say they are now planning to seek assistance from anyone with “further” proof of the alleged assaults.

Bizarrely, police yesterday questioned the integrity of the five Chhatra Union activists who were injured while trying to protect the women.

Liton Nandi is one of them.

“If Nandi was right in his description of the assault, we want to know whether he did his duty of an ideal citizen,” said Jahangir.

“Did he call the police to inform the matter? Did he seek help from the police deployed in the TSC?” he added.

In fact, Liton did. In the footage released by the police, he is seen trying to resist the attackers on several occasions and is seen talking to one cop, apparently seeking help, once.

“First I went to a group of policemen asking them to bring more force, but they did not respond. Another time, I requested another team to intervene when it started charging batons on the attackers,” said Liton, who came to The Daily Star office last night when he described the whole incident and explained the footage frame by frame.