Teacher’s humiliation: Insecurity grips his family

A Narail college teacher, who was publicly humiliated by being forced to wear a garland of shoes around his neck on June 18, has been away from home since the incident.
Meanwhile, his wife and three daughters are spending their days in fear, even though police have been deployed at his Borokula village home of Narail Sadar upazila.
"We are scared that agitators might attack our house, which is why my father has taken shelter elsewhere," said Shyama Biswas, the eldest daughter of Swapan Kumar Biswas, acting principal of Mirzapur United Degree College.
"I'm not going to college and my two younger sisters have also stopped attending school. We too are feeling insulted," she told The Daily Star over phone yesterday.
Meanwhile, four people have been arrested after a case was filed in connection with the incident.
The arrestees are: Shawon, 26, and Rahmat Ullah, 22, workers of mobile servicing shops, Rimon, 20, an auto-rickshaw driver, and Monirul Islam, 25, a madrasa teacher,
Some locals said the teacher did not commit any offence, but was a victim of an internal feud between the college teachers.
On June 27, the district administration held a meeting with locals, law enforcers and other stakeholders to discuss the issue. At the meeting, some raised the issue of the feud, sources said.
Achin Chakraborty, president of the college governing body, yesterday said he was in Dhaka when the incident occurred, adding that a probe is ongoing to identify those involved.
Habibur Rahman, deputy commissioner of Narail, and Prabir Kumar Roy, superintendent of police, were reportedly present during the incident.
Contacted, they both said they "did not see whether the garland of shoes was put around the teacher's neck and just wanted to avoid any violence".
Some left-leaning political parties yesterday met the Narail DC office and demanded a judicial investigation.
Locals and police said Rahul Dev Roy, a student of Mirzapur United Degree College, made a Facebook post praising Nupur Sharma, BJP's suspended spokesperson who made remarks hurting "religious sentiments".
When he went to the college on June 18, other students and locals started verbally attacking him.
At one stage, he took shelter in teacher Swapan's room. The demonstrators then alleged Swapan was trying to protect Rahul.
Later, a team of Narail Sadar police rushed to the spot to take Rahul to the station. But the protesters demanded immediate punishment.
At one stage, they clashed with police, injuring at least 10.
In the afternoon, the DC and the SP went there to quell the chaos.
When police, along with Rahul and Swapan, were heading towards the police station, the protesters intercepted them and put garlands of shoes around Rahul and Swapan, said locals.
In another development, rights body ARTICLE 19 expressed deep shock and concern over the murder of a Savar college teacher and the humiliation of Swapan.
Utpal Kumar Sarkar, 35, a lecturer of Haji Yunus Ali School and College in Savar, was beaten to death by a student recently.
In Rangpur city, students of different colleges yesterday formed human chains to protest the attacks against the teachers.
(Our Dinajpur correspondent contributed to this report.)
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