The night of July 27, 2024, still haunts her. A first-year law student of a private university, she still cannot forget how detectives surrounded her in a small room and groped her. On a table in front of her lay a blank paper for her to confess, according to her accounts to the International Crimes Tribunal and The Daily Star.

Officers of the Detective Branch of police insisted that she tell them the whereabouts of the July uprising leaders. She refused. One officer then came close, leaned in, stroked her hair and groped her, saying she would be implicated in a case over the attack on BTV Bhaban, she said. 

"I will see you in custody at night," she remembers him saying.

There was a pistol on the table. One officer picked it up dramatically and cocked. The metallic click echoed through the small room. He came closer and held the gun against her forehead. The officer's face inches away from the girl, he sneered, "Admit everything. Confess!"

The evening, that quickly turned into a nightmare for the university student, had begun with an unexpected phone call. She agreed to recount the details to The Daily Star on condition of anonymity.

The phone call had come from an unknown number but the young protester, aged 18, thought it was a fellow protester. Soon, she realised she was wrong, and quickly hung up the phone. Several more calls followed, but she did not pick up.

Then she received a message: Hello … [we are withholding the victim's name]. It's Javed. AC DB Ramna, Mintoo Road, Dhaka. Need to talk with you for our purpose & also for your safety."

In another message later that evening, she was told that detectives were waiting downstairs of her building and asked her to come down. When the girl's parents refused, they were told to bring their daughter to the Uttara Paschim Police Station.

"As soon as I went to the station, they started hurling expletives at me … even in front of my parents."

The Daily Star could not independently verify her accounts. We also could not contact the officer-in-charge of the police station for comments.

She said that at one point, the cops asked her parents to leave the room, but the father refused. "They pushed my father who has a heart condition. He fell to the ground."

With her father out of the room, one police officer, aged over 40, came close. "He touched my shoulder and stroked my hair. I froze in fear,"

He also threatened her with teaching her a lesson through the now infamous Harun-or Rashid, better known as DB Harun.

But she still refused to give any details about her fellow protesters. Then one officer pulled a stunt with the gun on the table. One officer cocked it, put it against her head and pressed the trigger. "I thought I would die. But there were no rounds in the chamber."

They finally let her go at 1:00am on July 28.

The International Crimes Tribunal yesterday sent Javed Iqbal, the then ADC of DB, to jail upon arrest in relation to this incident. Investigators told The Daily Star that they have already identified the police officers who were present in that room on the night of July 27, tracking the location of their phones.