A metropolitan magistrate court in Dhaka on Thursday granted bail to Dhaka University staff Mostafa Asif who was arrested Wednesday evening allegedly for harassing a female student on her way to the university from the capital’s Shahbagh area.
Metropolitan magistrate Mahera Mahbub passed the order as Shahbagh police produced him before the court in the case filed by the victim student, the court’s general recording officer for Shahbagh police station Abul Kalam said.
‘Mostafa was granted bail as the plaintiff applied to the Shahbagh police station to withdraw her case. The police submitted the copy of the application to the court,’ he said.
Mostafa, an assistant binder at the Dhaka University Central Library, allegedly harassed the female student for her dress.
¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· court correspondent reported that Mostofa, after getting bail, was welcomed by a large number of people clad in Punjabis and pagris.
Earlier, a group of people under the banner of Towhidi Janata besieged Shahbagh police station for over eight hours until 8:30am when Mostafa was taken to the court, Shahbagh police station officer-in-charge Khalid Mansur said.
The victim student’s close friends alleged that she was forced by the DU proctor to withdraw the case.
DU proctor Saifuddin Ahmed, however, denied the allegation.
‘The plaintiff herself withdrew the case,’ the proctor added.
The victim, however, declined to make any comment over the issue of withdrawal of the case.
The victim first reported the incident to the DU proctor’s office and later filed a case with Shahbagh police station, ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· correspondent at DU reported.
A three-member probe committee led by assistant proctor Rafiqul Islam was formed by the DU administration to investigate the allegation.
Proctor Saifuddin Ahmed told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· that Mostafa would be kept away from his works at the university during the investigation. ‘The syndicate will take appropriate action in this regard based on the investigation report.’
The committee was asked to submit its report as soon as possible, he said.
The proctor said that they would talk to the nearest police station to ensure the victim’s security.
Bangladesh Mahila Samity in a statement on Thursday expressed deep concern over the recent incidents including the harassment of the DU female student.
The Dhaka University unit of the Revolutionary Student Unity, in a joint statement, strongly condemned and protested at the ‘moral policing’ and harassing the female student.
A good number of incidents of harassing women have been taking place since the fall of the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League regime on August 5, 2024 amid a mass uprising.
Although some of the cases remained unreported, the Police Headquarters data showed that 8,307 cases were reported across the country under the Women and Children Repression Prevention Act from August 2024 to January 2025. Â
On March 1, two female students were attacked by a mob allegedly for smoking at a public place near NHA tower at Lalmatia in Dhaka. No case was, however, lodged in this connection.
The matter was resolved after talking to both parties – the students and the attackers – and the two students were released by the police in the custody of their families at about 11:00pm on the day, according to the police.
On September 13, the police arrested a youth at a location in the Kalur Dokan area of Cox’s Bazar district town for his alleged involvement in harassing and beating women on a sea beach in Cox’s Bazar.
On August 23, 2024, Cox’s Bazar senior judicial magistrate court granted bail to a woman and her daughter, who were earlier forced to parade with their bodies and hands tied up.
The video of the parade went viral on social media.