Police have detained four people, including a woman, over the defacement of a graffiti of Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore outside the Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka. They are being interrogated by the Detective Branch (DB) of police.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Ramna Division Deputy Commissioner Sheikh Zahidul Islam confirmed the matter to the Dhaka Tribune on Saturday evening.
“Four people, including a woman, have been detained. They are now at the DB for questioning. Their names and identities cannot be disclosed at this stage in the interest of the investigation,” he said.
Earlier on Saturday, Shahbagh police detained A N M Ayas, member secretary of the Rashtra Sanglap Forum, in connection with the incident. Two other people, including a woman, were also detained at the same reason.
The incident, which took place in Segunbagicha ahead of Sharadiya Durga Puja, has raised concerns over the possibility of unrest during the religious festival. However, police have yet to establish whether the defacement was linked to any planned provocation.
Several videos circulating on social media show a woman using a brush to smear black ink on Tagore’s mural. A police officer from Shahbagh Police Station intervened and moved her away from the spot. Following a commotion involving the woman and her associates, police detained them and took them away in a van. They were heard chanting slogans during the incident.
Speaking to the media initially, the woman claimed Tagore had opposed the establishment of the University of Dhaka and had asked, “What need do paupers have of education?” Describing the poet as “against Bangladesh”, she said she had defaced the portrait in protest.
However, she later offered a different account, claiming she had been suffering from a fever and had gone to the Shilpakala Academy area under the pretext of attending a regular protest programme. She said she had not known beforehand that ink would be applied to Tagore’s portrait. She also alleged that a male police officer had pushed her during her detention.
The wall outside the Shilpakala Academy features portraits of several prominent figures from the subcontinent, including Tagore, filmmaker Satyajit Ray, educationist Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and writer Sanjib Chattopadhyay.
On October 5, following a drive by Dhaka South City Corporation to clear footpath encroachments in Segunbagicha, portraits of 10 eminent figures, including Tagore, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin and Satyajit Ray, were painted on the walls. Tagore’s portrait was defaced with ink within days.
Security has been tightened across the capital ahead of Durga Puja. On October 6, DMP Commissioner Mosleh Uddin Ahmed described this year’s festival as an “acid test” for police, pledging maximum security at puja mandaps through the deployment of uniformed and plainclothes officers.
