The mobile phone number police published recently for witnesses to contact regarding information on women’s sexual assault on Pohela Boishakh was found switched off yesterday with the police still claiming that no major attack took place.
The Dhaka Tribune yesterday tried to contact the chief and other members of the investigation team several times, but they neither received the calls nor replied to the text messages.
When asked about the unavailability of the phone number, Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s acting deputy commissioner for media and public relations SM Jahangir Alam Sarker said they had also provided an email address and a website link and people could file information through those means.
The probe team comprising Additional Commissioner (crime and operation) Ibrahim Fatemi, Joint Commissioner (logistics) Belal Uddin and Detective Branch’s Deputy Commissioner Jahangir Matubbar made no progress as of yesterday into the investigation into the sexual assault at the TSC and Suhrawardy Udyan on Pohela Boishakh.
The police still stick to their stand that no incident of major sexual assault had taken place in those areas except for some scuffles.
Ramna division’s Additional Deputy Commissioner Ibrahim Khan, who is supervising the investigation, said they were trying to identify the thugs who had caused the scuffles.
He, however, said they had yet to find any breakthrough from the CCTV camera footage.
“We are still scrutinising the footage,” he added.
Meanwhile, human rights activists and protestors alleged the police had released partial CCTV camera footage.
Liton Nandi, president of Bangladesh Chhatra Union’s Dhaka University unit who had rescued a woman on that day, said there were CCTV cameras at the southeast corner of the Raju Sculpture where incidents of stripping off women had taken place, but the police had not disclosed the footage.