NB: The identity of the accused has been withheld due to laws governing reporting on underaged individuals.
Students of Udayan High School, affiliated with the University of Dhaka (DU), staged a protest on Tuesday over allegations of sexual harassment against a ninth-grade student.
The student, whose father is a DU faculty dean, has been accused of harassing female classmates, touching them inappropriately and using artificial intelligence (AI) to create obscene images of a female student.
The protesters alleged that instead of taking action against the accused, the school authorities had taken disciplinary action against 10 students who protested against him. They also accused the authorities of bias in the investigation to protect the accused, allegedly due to his father’s influence.
During the demonstration, the students placed five demands, including issuing a transfer certificate (TC) to the accused, ensuring female students’ safety, preventing harassment and intimidation of victims and other students, allowing the students facing disciplinary action to return to regular classes, and ensuring an independent and impartial investigation.
Students alleged that the accused had been staring at female classmates inappropriately, sending offensive messages and touching them without consent since May this year. He was also accused of using AI to create obscene images of a female student and sharing them with his friends.
A ninth-grade student who took part in the protest, speaking on condition of anonymity, alleged that the accused had touched her inappropriately twice in May. She further claimed that he had used AI to create nude images of her and a friend who does not study at Udayan School and shared them with his friends.
“Following this, my friend began receiving obscene messages from different people,” she told Daily Waadaa.
Another female student said the accused had sent her inappropriate messages during the half-yearly examinations. She also claimed that screenshots of conversations containing obscene remarks about girls and threats of rape later surfaced.
The students alleged that the school authorities had repeatedly refused to accept their complaints about the incidents.
According to the students, around 60-70 classmates confronted the accused after school on October 7 and asked him to delete the obscene images and messages. A group of students later took him to a friend’s residence in Azimpur Government Colony, where he was allegedly assaulted.
A student who took part in Tuesday’s protest claimed that the accused was slapped twice before being sent home in a rickshaw that day.
The following day, October 8, several teachers took 10 students involved in the incident to a teachers’ room and kept them there from 8am until around 2-3pm to record their written statements.
During this time, the teachers allegedly told them: “Because of you, our jobs are at stake. Do you know whose son you have targeted? You have targeted a DU dean’s son!”
The students alleged that they were initially barred from attending classes and examinations. Although they were later allowed to sit for examinations in a separate room following protests by their guardians, they were not permitted to return to regular classes.
They also alleged that some families were threatened with disciplinary action and the issuance of transfer certificates.
The accused student’s father told the media that 8-10 students had forcibly taken his son away on October 7.
He alleged that the students first took his son to the rooftop of Palashi Market, threatened to throw him off the building and forced him to record a confessional video. They later took him to Azimpur Government Colony and assaulted him. His son managed to return home following the intervention of a local resident, he said.
He said he had submitted a written complaint to the school principal and filed a general diary (GD) with the police over the incident.
He further claimed that screenshots of private conversations between his son and a student named Rafsan had been distorted and circulated to defame his son.
Asked whether the Instagram account involved belonged to his son, he said, “It may or may not belong to my son.”
Following the father’s complaint, the school authorities formed a five-member investigation committee on October 11. The committee comprises three schoolteachers and two DU assistant proctors.
Students have questioned the committee’s impartiality, alleging that the two assistant proctors teach in the same faculty as the accused student’s father.
The school's Principal Mohammad Arifur Rahman said at a press briefing that the school authorities had been unaware that the two assistant proctors belonged to the same faculty as the accused student’s father. They were included in the committee because they were known to the school and were considered guardians, he said.
“We would discuss the matter with the vice-chancellor before making further decisions, as the students had expressed no confidence in the investigation committee,” he told reporters.
Regarding the 10 students kept out of regular classes, the principal said they had been placed under what he called “operation stay” to ensure an impartial investigation and prevent disorder, as they were accused of assaulting the other student.
He said the accused student had also been kept out of classes. The school would arrange to make up for the students’ learning gaps before the annual examinations, he added.
The principal also assured that no disciplinary action would be taken against the protesting students.