DU Employee Gets Bail in Student Harassment Case After Overnight Siege at Shahbagh Police Station
Mostofa Asif, an assistant bookbinder at the Dhaka University library, who was arrested for harassing a DU student, has been granted bail.
Following his arrest, a crowd identifying themselves as Tawhidi Janata gathered in front of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court today (6 March) morning, where Mostofa was presented. They rejoiced upon his release.
Earlier, from around 1:00 AM, the crowd, mostly youths, had assembled in front of Shahbagh Police Station and stormed it half an hour later, demanding his release. Some of them even broadcasted the incident live on Facebook from inside the duty officer’s room.
One individual, Altaf Hossain, introducing himself as the joint convener of the 'Anti-Discrimination Prisoners Release Movement', went live on Facebook multiple times. In one of the videos, he was seen interviewing Mostofa Asif, the arrested contractual binder at Dhaka University.
On-duty policemen attempted to stop the crowd, but they ignored orders. At one point, Duty Officer Sub-Inspector Ekramul Islam was seen explaining to them that he had no legal authority to release or decide the arrest of anyone. He repeatedly requested the crowd not to create a "mob" situation. However, the crowd insisted that they were only showing solidarity for their "wrongfully arrested" fellow.
Altaf Hossain, during one of his live sessions, stated, "I came here to express our freedom of speech."
After 2:15 AM, the crowd left the police station premises but continued their demonstration in front of it.
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