[WARNING: Smoking is injurious to health.]

A young woman, sitting with a man, was smoking near Rajshahi's Circuit House Road -- a public space -- on Sunday afternoon when a man appeared and started shouting at her, asking to leave immediately. Soon, some other men joined him in rebuking her for "smoking in a public place".

A video of the incident that went viral on social media showed the man repeatedly and rudely telling the woman to put out her cigarette and leave. The woman tried to argue, asking the man what she had done wrong, and pointing out that there were several men nearby who were also smoking.

The mob that formed around the woman and her friend started getting louder and at one stage she had to leave, humiliated.

While she was leaving, someone in the mob was heard saying that "this kind of insolent behaviour is a reason for rape".

The video also shows a youth standing up for the woman and  questioning the men verbally abusing her, asking whether they have any  authority to stop her from smoking. He also faced the mob's wrath.

According to women's rights activists in Rajshahi, this was not an isolated incident; rather, it was part of a growing, disturbing trend happening in different city areas over the last few years.

Men, either in groups or alone, are harassing women for not following what they refer to as "socially acceptable behaviour", they said.

Initially, such incidents of harassing women were limited to Rajshahi  University campus but gradually, similar incidents started happening in  Uposhohor and Lakshmipur, said Prof Mahbuba Kaniz, general secretary of  RU unit of Bangladesh Mohila Parishad.

In early November, Rajshahi's Rabindra Sangeet Sammiloni Parishad  general secretary Monira Mithi posted on Facebook, stating that some  women in burqa harassed her in public for not covering her head.

Talking to The Daily Star, she said she was harassed three times in the last two years.     "I have been living in this city for several decades. Such harassment is quite new to me," she said.

She described her latest experience at Uposhohor New Market on November 7 and how she was rebuked by some women for not covering her head.

Under Mithi's Facebook post, some 88 persons -- mostly women --  commented and many of them shared their experience of being harassed in  different city areas in the span of the last two-three years.

One Mitalee Sarker wrote that she and her mother experienced similar harassment while shopping at Shaheb Bazar. Nibedita Chatterjee wrote such incidents happened to her despite wearing shankha -- bangles which Hindu women usually wear. Contacted, Rajshahi Metropolitan Police's spokesperson and  Additional Deputy Commissioner Golam Ruhul Kuddus said such incidents  were never reported to police.

"Rajshahi city is comparatively safer than other cities in the  country and the city's police are active in maintaining this status," he  said, wondering why such incidents have not been reported despite  occurring for years.

Harassing people and verbally abusing them are serious crimes as per  law, he said and added, if reported, police will take action.