Staff Reporter :
A video showing on-duty policemen harassing a young woman who was returning home by on auto-rickshaw late at night at a checkpoint in the capital’s Rampura has triggered outrage on social media, facebook.
The incident took place around 2:30am on Tuesday.
At least two policemen were seen in the 6:23 minute footage stopping on auto-rickshaw carrying the woman, who was travelling alone, to check her handbag.
As the cops started using offensive language, an altercation broke out between the woman and the policemen.
The law enforcers were heard hinting that she was a prostitute (you just came out of a hotel) as she was travelling late at night.
As the cops constantly flashed a torch on her face, she asked them to take it off and check her handbag.
Seeking anonymity, a Deputy Commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said the police team leader at the checkpoint, an assistant sub-inspector of Rampura Police Station, was withdrawn from the police station and attached to the Deputy Commissioner’s office. Najmul Islam, an Additional Deputy Commissioner of the DMP’s Cyber Security Unit, said five policemen were on duty at the checkpoint.
Departmental actions would be taken against those involved in the incident, he said.
Najmul said that police were interrogating two cops, who talked to the woman, to know whether any other policeman was involved in the incident.
Nadia Jui, Senior Assistant Commissioner (Khilgaon Zone) of DMP and Investigator of the case, told The New Nation on Wednesday evening, “We have primarily identified the offenders and one of them has been withdrawn from the duty and attached to the DMP Commissioner.”
The duty team leader and Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) Iqbal has confessed his involvement, the ASP said. A recommendation will be submitted to the authorities concerned for necessary actions, the police official said.
