Anti-rape protesters block Shahbagh intersection  

Dhaka (Oct 21, 2020): Anti-rape protesters today staged demonstration at Shahbagh intersection in Dhaka pressing home their nine-point demand to stop the unabated incidents of rape and repression on women and children.

A number of students and cultural activists of different left-leaning bodies and cultural organisations staged the demonstration around 12:30pm, disrupting movement of vehicles on different roads in and around the area.

From the protest programme, they demanded justice of those carried out attacks on an anti-rape long-march in Feni and immediate resignation of the home minister.

The vehicle movement from Paltan to Kataban and Shahbagh to Banglamotor halted for several hours due to the protest programme.

Prior to the demonstration, leaders of the left-leaning student bodies held a rally in front of the National Museum.

While addressing the rally, Ragib Naeem, general secretary of Chhatra Union Dhaka University unit, said women, man and children are being repressed indiscriminately.

“The state has become rapist friendly due to the culture of impunity,” Ragib said in his brief speech and vowed that they will ensure topple of the government through the movement.

Later, they brought out a procession that marched Kataban intersection and staged the demonstration at Shahbagh. They also set fire on tires to press home their demands.

Protests against rape and violence against women erupted across the country following the recent incidents of gang rapes in Sylhet’s MC College and molestation of a woman in Noakhali’s Begumganj upazila.

In the face of the protests, the president has recently promulgated an ordinance allowing death penalty as the highest punishment for the crime instead of life imprisonment.