DESPITE support and care from authorities, particularly the healthcare providers, the eight-year-old rape victim from Magura lost the battle for life in Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on March 13 while anti-rape protests raged. Four accused in this case are arrested and the law minister assured a speedy trial of the case but the movement against rape continued as the government has failed to respond in other recent cases of violence against women. Protesters demand a systemic change in the legal system, which includes the removal of the home adviser for his failure to ensure women鈥檚 safety, the establishment of a speedy tribunal for rape cases and logical reforms in rape and sexual harassment laws. The government so far has taken no steps to address the systemic concerns but appeared hostile towards the protesters. The police have not only violently dispersed an anti-rape march towards the chief adviser鈥檚 residence but have also filed a case against the protesters, 12 named and 90 unnamed, for allegedly 鈥榓ttacking the police.鈥� The interim government has relied on the same strategy of police violence and legal harassment against protesters that the deposed Awami League used to silence people鈥檚 demand for justice.
Anti-rape movements for a systemic change and undoing patriarchal biases in state and society leading to victim blaming is more than justified given the way a harasser was recently publicly welcomed with a garland while the police appeared helpless before a 鈥榤ob鈥�. The police in a statement on March 12 also claimed in the case statement against the protesters that they were attacked and seven of their personnel were injured. Contrary to police claims, the protesters said that plainclothes police personnel tried to instigate violence from within the rally and became violent. On other occasions recently, the police used similar high-handedness to disperse crowds. The police on March 12 dispersed a section of non-government primary schoolteachers using water cannons and charged at them with truncheons. In January, an ordinary man fell victim to police violence as he was mistaken for a protester demanding the constitutional recognition of the ethnic minorities. Sadly, police behaviour shows a clear bias against the students and a large section of the people who made the end of the authoritarian Awami regime possible.
For the police to win public trust, they must abandon the strategy of violence and legal harassment of the deposed authoritarian regime. The interim government that claims police reforms as its priority agenda should investigate to establish how matters of pacifying a peaceful protest became a targeted attack on certain protesters. The government must also ensure that a protocol to disperse crowds is in place and thoroughly followed.