Tawhidi Janata besieges Shahbagh Police Station demanding release of man arrested for harassing female DU student
As of 4:26am, the crowd was yet to leave the station’s premises, reports our correspondent.
An agitating crowd identifying themselves as Tawhidi Janata has blocked the entrance to Shahbagh Police Station by staging a sit-in, demanding the release of a man who was detained for harassing a female student of Dhaka University yesterday afternoon.
They have been stationed at the Shahbagh police station area for more than seven hours now.
The mob, comprised of mostly youths, started gathering in front of the police station at around 1am today (6 March) and stormed it half an hour later.
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Some of them started to broadcast the incident on Facebook from inside the duty officer's room.
One man, Altaf Hossain, who introduced himself as the joint convener of the 'Anti-Discrimination Prisoners Release Movement', went live on Facebook multiple times.
In one live video, he was seen interviewing the arrestee, a contractual binder at the University of Dhaka.
On-duty policemen were seen trying to bar them but the crowd ignored their orders.
At one point, Duty Office Sub-inspector Ekramul was seen telling the crowd that he had no legal authority to release or make the decision to arrest someone.
The duty officer several times requested the crowd not to create a "mob" situation, in response to which, the crowd retaliated and said, "We are not creating any mob. We just came to show our solidarity with one of our fellow brothers who was wrongfully arrested."
"I came here [at the police station] to express our freedom of speech," Altaf Hossain kept saying during one of his live sessions.
Ekramul Islam, duty officer of the police station told journalists that after 2:15am, the crowd got out of the police station and took position in front of it.
The arrestee
The arrestee has been identified as Mostofa Asif. He is an assistant bookbinder at the DU library.
The DU administration handed over Asif to Shahbagh police station yesterday evening after he reportedly admitted to verbally abusing a DU female student for not having her "scarf" in the right place.
The student had filed a complaint in this regard with the DU proctor and later filed a case with the Shahbagh police station.
Shahbagh police station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Md Khalid Mansur said, "The boy sexually harassed the female student of Dhaka University. The girl filed a complaint in this regard at the proctor's office and the police station. Necessary action has been taken in view of this."
Meanwhile, speaking to reporters yesterday, Dhaka University Proctor Saifuddin Ahmed said the student had filed a complaint with his office over the incident. Later students identified the accused and took him to the proctor's office.
"The man confessed to harassing the student. Later, he was sent to Shahbagh Police Station and the library authorities were informed," he said.
In a Facebook post made earlier in the day, the DU student detailed the alleged harassment.
She shared a photo of a man in the post and wrote, "This man harassed me today on my way from Shahbagh. He suddenly stopped me on the road and told me that my clothing was inappropriate, I did not wear a veil among other things, and his behaviour was very aggressive."
She wrote that when she enquired about his department and designated dormitory, assuming he was a DU student, the man replied that "he was not from campus".
The student further wrote that she was wearing a salwar, kameez and a headscarf.
He ran away when she warned him that she would call the proctor about this incident, according to the post.
