Cop faces arrest warrant

A Dhaka court yesterday issued an arrest warrant against Sub-inspector Ratan Kumar of Adabor Police Station for alleged sexual harassment of a private university student in the city's Mohammadpur over two weeks ago.

Taking the charges against the SI into cognisance, Judge Md Salehuddin Ahmed of the Fourth Tribunal for Prevention of Women and Children Repression passed the order.

The order came after Public Prosecutor Forkan Miah appealed to the court for issuing an arrest warrant against the cop.

The court directed the officer-in-charge of the police station to submit by March 16 a report on execution of the arrest warrant.

The victim alleged that SI Ratan and two other cops of the police station stopped her rickshaw around 3:00pm on January 31 while she was on way to a bookstore on Nurjahan Road.

The policemen confined the ASA University student to an electronics shop in Mohammadpur and harassed her for about 45 minutes, accusing her of being a yaba peddler.

The following day, the police suspended the cop.

Later, the victim filed a case against the cops with the court. After holding a hearing, the tribunal judge sent the complaint to Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Sheikh Hafizur Rahman to conduct a judicial inquiry into the allegation and submit a probe report within seven workdays.

Later the CMM tasked Metropolitan Magistrate Md Imdadul Haque with the inquiry. The magistrate on February 9 recorded statements of five people, including the victim, and found the allegation against Ratan to be true.      

Talking to The Daily Star recently, Biplob Kumar Sarkar, deputy commissioner (Tejgaon Division) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, said they conducted a probe into the incident and found that the SI talked to the girl on the street unnecessarily.

If found guilty of sexual harassment, an accused might face a minimum three-year jail term and a maximum sentence of seven years.