Analysis: A Mother’s Day gift from police!

Terror was written all over her face.

She looked like a doe trying to run away from the tiger’s paws. And then the brutes came thundering down, kicking and beating her, knocking her down on the pavement. That is what our police force did to this girl who was there to protest sexual assault near TSC on Pahela Baishakh, the Bangla New year.

What a gift from the police on the Mother’s Day!

And what was her crime? She threw an earthen pot on an armoured personnel carrier after police swooped on students who were protesting police failures to arrest those sex predators. 

We have seen the videos and still pictures of the assault time and again and watched in horrified dismay how brutal our police force that we raised with our tax could be on our children. We saw them hitting a young boy of about 20 with a truncheon with so much force that the stick got broken. The truncheon fell right across the forehead of the lean boy and his body wreathed with agony. I wonder whether he had any brain injury.

They were all commies, as the capitalists would taunt them. They belonged to the Bangladesh Chhatra Union, the leftist student organisation. Interestingly when numerous girls were groped and molested by a group of boys at TSC no other organisations other than Chhatra Union protested it. The ruling Awami League’s student front Bangladesh Chhatra League remained mysteriously and shamefully silent.

And what was the Dhaka University’s stance? The Vice Chancellor, AAMS Arefin Siddique, after a lot of protests had been made, came up with the explanation that while the protesters are overdoing, the university administration is playing down the incident. He also said if what the media reported is true then it is a shameful act!

Police who so valiantly attacked the protesters yesterday also claimed there was no such incident and no sexual assault and that only some “pushing and shoving” happened. As if shoving a girl is okay with them. Not a single criminal was arrested.

So when police swooped on the protesters yesterday, it only reflected the government’s and the administration’s indifferent attitude towards the New Year incident. We were shocked because we as civilized human beings expected rational reaction from the authorities. We should not have.