After the occurrence of any heinous crime in Bangladesh, it is rather a popular trend amongst the politicians to put the blame on so-called Islamists or unidentified miscreants purportedly to hide the true face of the perpetrators and to gain hidden political mileage. But, actually this is nothing but a twisted political game.
When a group of women were sexually assaulted in an extremely shameful manner near a Bengali New Year celebration venue on April 14, the true face of liberal values and the ugly face of some vandals who are products of the existing socio-political system were clearly exposed to the people of Bangladesh. To save these despicable criminals the political establishment is playing the same old game. After four days of this shameful incident without any evidence the current law minister claimed that it is an act of ‘Islamic’ terrorists.
In fact, sexual harassment on university campuses is a very common phenomenon in Bangladesh and year after year the political cadres of the ruling classes have been doing this dreadful crime right under the nose of the authority. Numerous complaints have been filed with the university authorities on behalf of the harassed women and a number of reports have been published in newspapers with detailed evidences. But the ruling politicians, university authority and law enforcement agencies never took any kind of action against these culprits. Rather, to meet their strategic gains, the leadership gave these culprits political endorsement and hence turned these campuses into safe havens for these perverts.
Only two months ago, during the Ekushey Book Fair, three women were sexually harassed on the same campus. From CCTV camera footage, two perpetrators were identified as the activists of a powerful student organisation. However, the university authority refused to take any action against them. This time again from CCTV footage some activists and general students of the university confirmed that some of the perpetrators were from the same organisation.
However, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) claims that they could not identify anyone and the government ministers are constantly blaming radical Islamists while turning a blind eye to the facts. Meanwhile, DMP is barred from disclosing the footage of CCTV-16, which is extremely important for the investigation.
Actually, some of the top echelons of our government are the primary obstacles in the process of protecting women’s dignity and honour. To get rid of this collective fallibility, we have to raise awareness and pressurise the same individuals we tend to elect every five years. This is required so that the people of this country not only get rid of sexual harassment of women but the state machinery is also made responsible to guard against such happening. Instead of identifying and punishing the miscreants, pointing fingers to a particular phantom enemy can never be the solution to the problem. Also this cannot ensure women’s safety and dignity and establish the rule of law.
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