Callous remarks by the police are a way of evading responsibility for the sexual assaults that marred the Pohela Boishakh celebrations at Dhaka University, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said yesterday.
Mizanur Rahman, the NHRC chairman, made the remarks at a press briefing at the NHRC office in the capital’s Moghbazar area. He said a culture of impunity, patriarchal mind-sets and religious fanaticism were behind the harassment.
The NHRC boss said footage from CCTV camera number 16 had captured images of sexual harassment, but said the police were not publicising it and were trying to avoid responsibility for the incident.
Human rights activists said the police had been indifferent during the incident and failed to respond properly to the assaults.
“Some of the alleged assaulters were held and handed over to policemen, but the police, irresponsibly, released them later,” Mizanur said.
He urged the DU authorities to form an independent probe body to investigate the incidents and to publicise the probe report.
Referring to a police comment that the assault victims had not been disrobed, the NHRC chief said even a gaze or words may constitute sexual harassment. “These sorts of statements are not to be expected from the police.”
Calling the assaults pre-planned, he criticised the DU proctor and expressed regret for the assaults during the Bangla New Year celebrations.
NHRC member and women’s rights activist Mahfuza Khanam blamed police for trying to make a distinction between forcibly stripping a victim and other forms of sexual assault.
She slammed the description of the incident as merely a scuffle, saying such comments were unacceptable.
Several people said vuvuzelas should be banned during such celebrations. Harassers honked the noisy instruments to muffle their victims’ screams.
While crowds of people in their thousands were celebrating Pohela Boishakh, gangs of unruly men swooped in and sexually harassed five to seven women at the Suhrawardy Udyan gate and other parts of the Dhaka University campus.
Chhatra Union DU unit President Liton Nandi received severe injuries while trying to rescue a woman near the TSC.