A DHAKA court on Tuesday placed three staffers including driver of a Turag Paribahan bus in a case filed over sexually harassing a private university female student in the running bus on her way to campus. According to the case statement, on April 21, the girl boarded the bus on Badda Link Road to go to the university. When all other passengers got down at Natun Bazar stoppage, the helper, conductor and driver started to sexually assault the girl. At one stage, she managed to fend them off and jump off the bus. Next day, the victim’s husband filed a case with Gulshan Police Station under the Women & Children Repression Prevention Act.
It is not the first woman harassment on the running bus. On January 23, police detained a bus driver and his helper over an allegation of sexual assault attempt on a female Dhaka University student on a Dewan Paribahan bus on Azimpur-Natun Bazar route. The victim jumped off the running bus to save herself after the transport workers made other passengers to get down from the bus keeping her inside.
What we see that women are continuously facing sexual harassment on city buses and minibuses. In fact, the number of unreported incidents is much higher. Most of the victims do not go to police station in fear of further trouble and social stigma. Not only in Dhaka, several women including garment workers were sexually assaulted on the buses and minibuses at Dhamrai, Narayanganj, Manikganj, Savar and Mymensingh, according to newspaper reports. In the incident of Turag Paribahan, the police became very much active when university students came down on street and blocked about 35 buses of the said transport agency on the road for whole night to protest harassment of their classmate.
We think, these incidents are occurring due to lack of enforcement of law and proper monitoring by government bodies. In generally, the seating arrangement for the women is not good at all in these transports. Now, sexual harassment makes their travelling risky and painful. We want to see proper punishment of the culprits. And hope the administration will not bow down by the pressure of transport associations. Stop women harassment on the running buses.
