Quota protests: GD filed against three people, including two DU teachers

A teacher has filed a general diary against three people, including two Dhaka University teachers, blaming the accused after she received death threats from unidentified people surrounding the quota reform protests.

Sonam Saha, assistant professor of Dhaka University’s Department of Development Studies, filed the GD on Thursday, Sub-Inspector Nur Alam Munshi of Shahbagh Police Station told bdnews24.com on Sunday.

The three accused are Prof Gitiara Nasreen from the university’s mass communication and journalism department, Associate Professor Samina Luthfa from the sociology department and theatre activist Ferdous Ara Rumee.

Sonam said two unidentified men with motorcycles blocked her at the Katabon intersection while heading to Siddheswari from her Azimpur residence and made a death threat. The miscreants told her that they knew her address and whereabouts, signalling consequences if she tried to protect the government's interest by providing so-called ‘impartial speech’.

“If you don’t shut your mouth, we will make you bow, they said before driving off towards Shahbagh. The nameplates of their motorbikes were covered with mud.”

Given the context of the incident, Sonam blamed an incident that occurred on Jul 17. On that day, misinformation had been spread from different Facebook pages saying that police were committing massacres and gang-rape at the university’s residential halls.

After hearing the rumours, Saha went to the campus with her husband Shafiqul Islam (assistant commissioner of the Gulshan Zone of Dhaka Metropolitan Police) around 11:30pm and inspected the situation, she said.

“We learnt that the students had left the campus. The campus was deserted due to the closure of halls. There were a few female students who were scheduled to leave the dormitories the next morning. There were residential teachers, their families, an adequate number of police personnel and media workers on the campus. Although the situation was strained throughout the day, the campus was calm, tranquil and safe during the period referred to. The claims of the massacre were completely false and baseless.”

Sonam made a Facebook post on the issue and some netizens shared it. The post called for a halt to the spread of misinformation and to prevent outside parties with their own agendas from infiltrating the student movement.

Sonam said in the GD that scores of netizens who were frightened and confused by the misinformation were assured by her post. As a result, a self-interested misleading political group became angry with her.

She said Gitiara Nasreen addressed her as Radio Pakistan, a member of the Peace Committee and indirectly called her a liar. Samina Luthfa also took to social media to describe her statement as untrue.

“Under their influence, many anti-government individuals virtually and verbally harassed me. They made ugly and repulsive comments. Theatre activist Ferdous Ara Rumee, a Facebook friend of Gitiara Nasreen, made a dangerous suggestion by stating that I was an ‘agency woman’. I believe they have a significant influence and responsibility for creating the situation that threatened me.”

When asked about the matter, Nasreen told bdnews24.com that everything on her Facebook is open. She said she made a Facebook post where she wrote something similar to Saha’s claim, but the mass communication and journalism teacher said that she did not note anybody’s name. She said she did not know Saha personally either.

“The claim of inciting someone to attack is absurd. It seems surprising that a university teacher could file such a GD. It is really unfortunate.”

Sociology department teacher Luthfa said she could not comment on the matter without seeing the GD. She was not able to see the document due to an internet outage.

Theatre activist Rumee was not available for comments.