A case has been filed under the Anti-Terrorism Act against four people, including ANM Ayas, member secretary of the Rashtra Sanglap Forum, over an incident in which ink was applied to a graffiti portrait of Rabindranath Tagore on a wall outside the Shilpakala Academy in Dhaka.
Shahbagh Police Station said the accused were being produced before a court.
Sheikh Zahidul Islam, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Ramna Division, said they were shown arrested in the case filed on charge of anti-state activities.
The three others are Md Sakibul Hasan, 19, Md Sujon Mia, 18, and Marjia Khandaker Rimi, 27. The arrestees were taken into custody on Saturday following a disturbance at the scene.
A video circulating on social media shows a woman using a brush to apply ink to Tagore’s portrait before a Shahbagh police officer intervenes and moves her away from the wall.
The woman and her associates subsequently created a commotion, prompting officers to place them in a police van while chanting slogans.
Speaking to reporters at the scene, the woman initially described Tagore as being “against Bangladesh” and said she had defaced the portrait in protest.
However, when pressed further by journalists, she changed her account, claiming she was unwell and suffering from a fever.
She asserted that she had been brought to the Shilpakala Academy under the impression she would participate in a “general protest programme” and had not been informed beforehand that she would be expected to deface Tagore’s portrait.
