A group of young men boarded the Dhaka metro rail wearing shorts on Thursday morning as part of a protest against the alleged harassment of an athletic trainer at Farmgate station.
The protest, organised under a civic initiative titled “In Shorts on the Metro!”, followed the harassment of Sazzad Hossain on 27 September.
On that day, on-duty police stopped Sazzad and described his T-shirt and shorts as “obscene” after he had exercised and went to board the metro rail. The officers forced him to stand in front of the ticket punch machine for 40 minutes, despite there being no official dress code for metro passengers.
The protest programme aimed to oppose harassment over normal sportswear, demand clear written rules, and promote respectful behaviour towards passengers. Organisers stressed that the issue was harassment rather than wearing shorts
An online campaign for the event had recorded 672 “Going” confirmations and 8,200 “Interested” responses on Facebook by 10:30pm on Wednesday.
Around 7am on Thursday, private-sector employees Sagar Majumder and Rakibul Islam and businessman Mahfuzur Rahman arrived beneath the Farmgate metro station near Anwara Udyan.
Asked why only the three had initially appeared despite the large number of people showing interest in the event, Mahfuzur said they had come to make a personal protest and were unaware of what others had decided to do.
“I believe people should have the right to wear shorts on the metro. It is normal clothing. I do not usually travel by metro and I do not normally wear shorts. I probably found a pair of shorts after about five years and wore them today just to speak about this right,” Mahfuzur said.
After 7am, Sagar and Mahfuzur entered the metro station wearing shorts and travelled by train.
Around the same time, two other young men also reportedly entered Farmgate Metro Rail Station through another gate while wearing shorts, bringing the number of participants to five.
In the Facebook event, the organisers said the programme was not intended to create disorder but was a peaceful civic protest against what they described as arbitrary harassment. They also called for clear rules and respectful treatment of passengers.
“Wear your running shorts, put on a T-shirt, come together and board the metro,” the event description said, adding that if any clothing is prohibited, there should be clear and written rules.
The organisers said the issue was not shorts but harassment and called for passengers to be treated with respect.
