The girl did not show up at the Shahbagh police station until today to lodge a complaint, I know, out of disgrace and fear of further attack by the gang. She might have noticed the photos of attackers published in Dhaka Tribune.
One of our brave photographers took those on February 21 afternoon at Suhrawardy Udyan, near the extension of annual Amar Ekushey Book Fair organised by Bangla Academy.
He said the teenager victim had been driven away from her mother by the gang with a massive flow of crowd on that day. She was then assaulted by the persons on the photo while others in the outer circle of the gang guarded them.
They started to scatter and released the girl as soon as the photographer started hitting the flash of his camera. He took a dozen photos in a few seconds.
At this, one of them tried to resist the photographer (in photo). But he could not hit the photographer while the girl left the place.
Few minutes back the photographer found a woman crying as her daughter had been missing in the crowd.
After the Dhaka Tribune published photo story on this, nobody did care. No other newspaper or TV channel used the photos for the sake of justice and to respect the victim.
That day the photos were shared on the Facebook page of Dhaka Tribune and since then viewed by several thousand people and shared by many others.
Two other girls commented, they were assaulted too, the same day, in the crowd.
When contacted, police said they might act if a complaint was filed.
Neither Bangla Academy nor Dhaka University is interested to file a case demanding punishment of the accused, who were caught red-handed in the photographs.
These photos were also shared by me on my wall. It didn’t work much. Then I shared it with Desperately Seeking – Dhaka group, a much popular active group. Many wellwishers came and expressed solidarity, even some moderators of top traffic pages. They wished to help, on condition that there must be some people to file a case and ensure justice. Chowdhury Saheb of Moja Loss!? described her bitter experience.
I’ve been following the matter but failed to get a clue. And I later found that there has been not a single word on the issue in the Internet that Google can find!
I couldn’t sleep until writing these few words.
It’s been three weeks and we’ve failed to trace the assaulters. Is it culture of impunity that helps men to come out scot-free despite facing such allegations? Probably, Yes!