The trial of sexual harassment has not ended in 8 years

In the six years since the start of the trial, the court has accepted the testimony of only seven people. Testimony of 27 others is excluded. The state side is trying to finish the case. Hopefully, the case will be settled before next Baisakh.

Currently, the case is under trial in the court of Judge Begum Mafroza Parveen of Dhaka Women and Child Torture Prevention Tribunal-8. The case was last scheduled for hearing on March 19. But on that day the state could not present any witness in the court. For this reason, the court has set the next date for taking evidence on April 24.

In this regard, the lawyer of the state side of the concerned tribunal, Special Public Prosecutor Mohammad Rezaul Karim, said that the case is at the stage of taking evidence. The case is being handled with utmost importance by the state. We are all working on the case. A summons was sent to the police station to produce witnesses from the court. Many have changed address. Even though summons are sent for this, they are coming back. Still we are trying to finish the case. Hopefully, the trial of the case will be completed before next Pahela Baisakh.

Some women were sexually harassed in the TST area of Dhaka University in the first month of 2015. In that incident, Shahbag police station sub-inspector Abul Kalam Azad filed a case accusing unknown persons of sexual harassment. After that, the police said that they had identified eight sexual harassers from the video of the closed circuit camera and got their pictures.

The police also announced a reward of one lakh rupees for the surrender of those identified. But on the pretext of not getting their names and addresses, on December 9, 2015, the investigating officer of the case, Sub-Inspector of Detective Police Deepak Kumar Das submitted the final report to the court. Among the accused later identified. When Kamal was arrested, he was first arrested under section 54 and a request was made to re-investigate the case.

On February 23, 2016, the judge of Dhaka Women and Child Torture Prevention Tribunal-3 ordered a re-investigation of the case. After the re-investigation, on December 15, 2016, PBI inspector Abdur Razzak filed a charge sheet in the court accusing the only accused Kamal. On June 19, 2017, the then judge of Dhaka Women and Child Torture Prevention Tribunal Jayashree Samaddar framed charges against accused Kamal.

Accused Kamal's lawyer Anisur Rahman said that his name was not in the statement of the case. He is a sick, poor man. He sells vegetables on the pavements of Lalbagh. He is a diabetic, and was out for a walk on the day of the incident. Kamal had no idea what was going on there. He walked in and his image appeared in the video footage. Then the investigating officer arrested him. He was implicated in the case because of his picture appearing in the video footage. He knows nothing about the incident. Still, he is regularly appearing in court due to physical illness, but the state does not produce witnesses. We also want the case to be resolved quickly. The accused should not be deprived of justice.

Meanwhile, out of 34 witnesses in the case, only seven have testified in court so far. They are the plaintiff SI Abul Kalam Azad, investigation officer Deepak Kumar Das, DU student Tuhin Kanti Das, tea shopkeeper Shahjahan, Shah Alam, sherbet seller Malek and Monirul Islam. On March 19, the court issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against the other 27 witnesses included in the charge sheet. On the other hand, accused Kamal is currently on bail. He got bail from the High Court.