SEXUAL ASSAULT ON PAHELA BAISHAKH: Minister claims arrest, police deny.
The state minister for home, Asaduzzaman Khan, on Monday told parliament that few suspects in the sexual harassments during Bangla New Year celebrations at Dhaka University, while the law enforcement agencies denied any such arrest.
Replying to a supplementary question from independent lawmaker Tahzeeb Alam Siddique, the state minister said that all of the perpetrators were identified and few of them were arrested and produced before court.
‘The rest one or two suspects would be arrested too,’ he said.
Asaduzzaman, however, said that he meant the arrest of the people who were nabbed on the day of the incident.
Law enforcement agencies said that they were not aware of any arrest in connection with the incident.
Rapid Action Battalion legal and media wing director Commander Muhammad Mufti Mahmud Khan told New Age on Monday that the elite force had not yet arrested anyone in this connection. ‘We are trying to nab the suspects,’ he added.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police deputy commissioner (media and public relations) Muntasirul Islam said that he was not aware of any arrest in this connection. ‘We are continuing operation to arrest the suspects,’ he said.
In May, the police declared a bounty of Tk 1 lakh for providing information to capture eight people for their involvement in the series of sexual assaults of women and children on Dhaka University campus during the annual celebrations.
They were recognised from the footages of the police’s closed-circuit television cameras installed at the Teacher-Student Centre of the university.
According to media reports, at least 20 women and children were sexually assaulted by several gangs of stalkers on April 14 near the Suhrawardy Udyan gate of the TSC.
Some youths of Bangladesh Chhatra Union, including its Dhaka University unit president Liton Nandi, caught two of the assaulters and handed them over to the police. They were later released.
The incident sparked protests throughout the country with people from all quarters condemning the incident and demanding immediate arrest of the culprits.
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