A Dhaka court on Saturday recorded the confessional statement of Mahfuzur Rashid Ferdous, a teacher of Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST), in a case filed over sexual harassment of female students of the university. Metropolitan magistrate Kazi Kamrul Islam recorded the confessional statement of the teacher under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedures (CrPC) in the case. Earlier in the day, sub-inspector of Women Support and Investigation Division Afroz Irene Koli, also investigation officer (IO) of the case, produced him before the court on completion of his two-day remand, seeking the court order to send him to jail. Following the petition, the court recorded his confessional statement and passed the order to send him to jail. On May 4, a Dhaka court placed Ferdous on a two-day remand rejecting his bail petition in the case. On Thursday last, five AUST female students, who fell victim to sexual harassment by their teacher Ferdous, testified before separate Dhaka courts in the case. The five victims, all students of different semesters of the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (EEE) of the university, made their depositions against the teacher under section 22 of the Women & Children Repression Prevention Act. Police arrested Ferdous, who is associate professor of the Department of EEE, from his apartment in the city's Eskatan area early Wednesday in connection with a case filed by Asadullah Al Sayem, brother of a victim. Students of the university staged demonstrations on the campus against the teacher alleging that the teacher has a long record of harassing female students sexually. On April 30, the AUST authorities suspended the teacher in the face of the students' protests. According to the case, on March 2, Ferdous took an EEE first year student to his flat where he sexually harassed her and captured indecent pictures of the student and threatened her for uploading the pictures on the internet if she discloses it. Similarly, he harassed two more female students of his department on November 22, 2015 and on February 19, 2016 at his house and his chamber at the university, the case statement said.

Source: UNB