Gangs of unruly youths swooped on around five to seven women and sexually harassed them when thousands of people joined the Pohela Boishakh celebrations in Dhaka University's TSC and Suhrawardy Udyan gate areas on Tuesday last.
According to media reports, at least 30 youths were involved in the incidents, when a series of festivities were being held, celebrating the first day of the Bengali year.
The joyous celebration of the Bangalee's biggest festival was tainted by the incidents, sparking widespread public outrage.
Liton Nandi, Bangladesh Students' Union’s DU chapter President, who was severely injured trying to rescue one of the women, described the incident at a public protest afterwards.
The Dhaka Tribune has transcribed his statements from youtube footage.
The following is Liton's first hand account on some of the incidents:
“I saw the miscreants assaulting a young woman. She fell onto the ground but the youths were trying to take off her clothing in public in front of the Suhrawardy Udyan gate.”
“I came forward to rescue her. They started beating me when I tried to save her. I also fell down and broke my right arm.”
“As soon as we rescued her, we saw several youths assault another woman in front of her husband and child.”
“…the husband was being beaten up, and someone had wrapped himself around the girl. When we went, people were trying to grab her still. That's when I draped her with my punjabi, and some of us made a human barricade around the girl and her husband to take them away from there. While we were walking, we kept hearing "Record this! Record this! We won't ever get such a view again [referring to the stripped girl]"
“...by the time we came back, there were more such attacks happening. We assumed whenever we saw a small crowd that a girl was being harassed inside.”
“We asked police to call other police. But they were just waiting around. We handed over 4-5 people to the police. They were eventually released.”
“Another circle formed around a girl. We found her unconscious and half-stripped. The guy who was protecting her by wrapping himself around her was also being beaten up. She was being beaten up as she lay unconscious.”
In another incident, a woman was molested in front of her children.
“A kid was with their mother and brother. The woman was screaming saying I have my kids with me. But she was molested in front of her own children.”
“There were three to four groups of 20 people who were doing these.”
“There were many people standing on the Islands. You will not believe me, I was scared to call them for help because I kept thinking, what if they joined the sexual attack instead of helping stop it?”
“Police came after about half an hour. There was a DMP central control booth right next to this incident, and 19 CCTVs in the area. Not just one to two minutes, the attacks went on for one hour.”
As the situation came under control, I made call to the proctor of the university requesting to some police forces to TSC gate area.”
All he said: "This gate wasn't supposed to be opened."
“He did not even knew the gate was open or not. He did not even know if there were police there.
“The incident took place from 5:30pm to 7:00pm. Afterwards when some of our activists went to meet the proctor at 7:30pm, the proctor was playing chess on his computer.”
And he said: "What could I have done by going there?"
On Thursday, a High Court bench on its own volition issued a ruling upon the authorities concerned to investigate the incidents of sexual assault on women.
The bench of Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque and Justice Abu Taher Md Saifur Rahman also fixed May 17 for passing further orders on the matter.
