Sexual harassment: Protests flood Facebook, Twitter

On the fourth day following the sexual harassment on women at TSC on Pahela Baishakh, the social media continue to be flooded with protests from users, condemning the heinous act.

While the police still could not identify and take the perpetrators into custody, netizens active on Facebook and Twitter have been brainstorming over the CCTV footages and photos to identify the culprits. Scrutinising the CCTV clips available on the social networking websites, they have already identified a man, allegedly involved in the crime.

The man has been identified as Latif Rony, a student of Government Titumir College in Dhaka. Activists have also pinpointed that Rony had been previously involved in sexual harassment during this year’s Ekushey Boi Mela.

Besides, the activists have also identified sympathisers of the culprits as one Bappy Biswas, a student of Dhaka University. He has been isolated because of outrageous comments in favour of the culprits. 

Posts with photos and video footages of the incident have gone viral with countless shares, tags, tweets and retweets since the incident that took place on April 14 in attempt to identify the culprits.

The photos of a gang, harassing a girl in Swarwardhy Udyan during Ekushey Boi Mela which had gone viral on Facebook, along with the CCTV footages have helped the social activists to identify one of the perpetrators.

Facebook and Twitter users are continuously condemning the incident and actively participating in finding and bringing the perpetrators to justice as soon as possible.

Besides, users are continuously posting ideas on social networking websites suggesting how young girls and women can protect themselves, from such rowdy hooligans while travelling alone.

Many posts in groups, and pages shows frustrations over how the law enforcement agencies have failed to protect the girls, and yet to catch any miscreants.

Moreover, the tide of social awareness creating posts are seen on groups like Desperately Seeking Dhaka (DSD), whereby users are sharing ideas on how to protect girls from being harassed, and also sharing information through which the trouble makers may be caught.

A separate school of thoughts also exists in the social networking sites, defending the incident.

Comments like “Girls shouldn’t have had gone out at the first place”, “They wear clothes improperly, and blame it on us guys for being indecent. They have no dressing sense” and “They don’t cover themselves. They are not girls of good families” are also seen on the social media.

The two opposing school of thoughts have eventually ended up in a virtual chaos where one is prosecuting for justice and the other defending the crime.

Amidst all these, the protests have not stopped. They continue to raise awareness in the virtual world with photos and videos which might help the law enforcers track and arrest the criminals.