MARCH 7 SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Police are yet to identify the culprits behind the incident of sexually harassing a college girl in the capital's Bangla Motor on March 7.

“The investigation is underway, but there is no improvement to mention,” Maruf Hossain Sardar, deputy commissioner of DMP (Ramna division), told The Daily Star yesterday.

Police collected four to five videos of different areas around the spot, but they did not find any footage of the exact location where the incident occurred, said Jamil Hasan, deputy commissioner (DC) of DMP's detective branch (South).

“We do not have any DMP's CCTV camera on that specific location. We collected footage from a local shop, but its resolution is very low," he said. The victim girl has identified herself in that footage, but the people seen around her in the footage were normal pedestrians, said the official, adding the incident occurred just after a while.

She is supposed to meet the investigators today to give more details about the incident.

On March 8, a police official from Dhaka Metropolitan Police's cyber security and crime division told The Daily Star that they had primarily found that the girl was sexually assaulted. Two traffic policemen in that area were called yesterday, but they could not tell anything about the incident.

On March 7, the female student uploaded a Facebook status saying she was harassed near Bangla Motor by a group of youths who were moving in a procession.

The next day, the father of the girl filed a case with Ramna Police Station under the Women and Children Repression Act in connection with the sexual assault.

In the case, the victim's father said 15 to 20 youths in white T-shirts -- all aged between 25 and 30 -- surrounded the girl and started teasing her. Then she was sexually assaulted, it added.

Terming the incident unfortunate, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on March 8 said law enforcers collected video footage of the incident and would take action upon scrutinising them.

Several city streets were clogged with traffic for hours due to a rally organised by the Awami League at Suhrawardy Udyan  marking the historic March 7 Speech by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

On social media, at least seven women alleged that they too were physically and verbally harassed on roads during the rally.

DEBATERS PROTEST HARASSMENT

Some 60 debaters from different educational institutions formed a human chain in the capital yesterday protesting sexual harassment of women across the country.

At the human chain, formed under the banner of “Bitarkik Samaj” before the national museum, a member of Dhaka University Debating Society, Talib Hasan Rizvee, said, “The state has always been reluctant to punish perpetrators of such crimes.”

“These incidents cannot be prevented only by enforcing laws, we should wage a cultural movement to create social awareness,” he added, reports our DU Correspondent.

Fahmida Hasan Bappi, vice president of Debate for Humanity, also spoke.