Police have arrested a high ranked official of the non-government organisation Forum for Public Health in connection with a sexual harassment case filed by one of its former female employees.
The accused Ferdous Alam, the head of the Human Resource and Development Department of the NGO, was arrested on Monday after the case was filed the same day, said Azizul Haque, officer-in-charge of the capital’s Mohammadpur police station.
In the case statement, the victim alleged that Ferdous Alam had been harassing her sexually since he joined the NGO on April 17, 2011.
“I have been trying to avoid him since the beginning, but it was tough because he was the head of the department I worked for. He started misbehaving with me and threatened to fire me as I kept on refusing him,” the OC quoted from the case statement. Left with no other alternative, she filed a written complaint with the executive director of the organisation in December last year.
“The head of the executive committee assured me of taking punitive actions against the official. But he did not keep his words. Instead, the authority started pressuring me to resign,” victim’s statement said.
She finally gave in to the pressure and resigned on July 18 and filed the case Monday. Police, after primary interrogation, showed him arrested in the case.
A Dhaka court on Tuesday ordered for the accused to be sent to police custody after he was produced before it.
Joseph Halder, head of Advocacy and Information of the Forum for Public Health, told the Dhaka Tribune that the accused had already been terminated. However, he said the victim’s resignation had not yet been accepted.
