She looked like a doe trying to run away from the tiger's paws. And
then the brutes came thundering down, kicking and beating her, knocking
her down on the pavement. That is what our police force did to this girl
who was there to protest the sexual assault near TSC on Pahela
Baishakh, the Bangla New Year.
What a gift from the police on the Mother's Day!
And what was her “crime”? She threw an earthen pot on an armoured
personnel carrier after police swooped on students who were protesting
police failures to arrest those sex predators.
We have seen the videos and still pictures of Sunday's assault time
and again and shuddered in aghast, thinking how brutal our police force
that we raised with our tax could be on our children. We saw them
hitting a young boy of about 20 with a truncheon with so much force that
the stick got broken. The truncheon fell right across the forehead of
the lean boy and his body wreathed with agony. I wonder whether he had
any brain injury.
They were all commies, as the capitalists would taunt them. They
belonged to the Bangladesh Chhatra Union, the leftist student
organisation. Interestingly, when numerous girls were groped and
molested by a group of boys at TSC, no organisations other than Chhatra
Union protested it. The ruling Awami League's student front Bangladesh
Chhatra League remained mysteriously and shamefully silent.
And what was the Dhaka University's stance? The vice chancellor, AAMS
Arefin Siddique, after a lot of protests had been made, came up with
the explanation that while it is a natural tendency of protesters to
overdo, the administration always plays things down. He also said if
even 10 percent of what the media reported was true, then it would be
very condemnable and embarrassing!
Police who so valiantly attacked the protesters on Sunday also
claimed there was no such incident and no sexual assault and that only
some “pushing and shoving” happened during the New Year celebration. As
if shoving a girl is okay with them. Not a single criminal has been
arrested.
So when police swooped on the protesters, it only reflected the
government and the administration's indifferent attitude towards the New
Year incident. We are shocked because we as civilised human beings
expected rational reaction from the authorities. We should not have.
Suddenly, I remember the 2013 incident in Rajshahi where one brave
woman rescued a police officer who came under brutal attacks by Jamaat
activists.
Source: The Daily Star
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