A collected photo shows marks of injury on the neck of a detained Chhatra Union leader

A patrol team of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police in the early hours on Tuesday briefly detained two leaders of Bangladesh Chhatra Union while they were drawing an anti-rape graffiti on the wall of Viqarunnisa Noon School and College in the capital’s Ramna area.

The detained student leaders were Chhatra Union Dhaka city unit president Jahar Lal Roy and his unit education and research affairs secretary Sadat Mahmud. The arrest was made at about 2:30am.

Ramna police station officer-in-charge Monirul Islam said Chhatra Union leaders were released after an hour.

Chhatra Union central committee president Mehedi Hassan Nobel told New Age that his comrades were drawing graffiti near the Viqarunnisa College in Ramna when a police team came and resisted them from drawing the graffiti.

The Chhatra Union activists protested at police action which they said was an obstruction to their political freedom and rights.

 A video of the incident showed a police officer asking the student activists whether they took permission from the authorities to draw this graffiti.

In the video, the police were seen dragging them to police van by holding their neck where Jahar was seen saying ‘do not beat us. We will get in the car.’

Mehedi said they were picked at about 2:30am and were released at about 5:00am, and later they were taken to medication. Photos that went viral showed Sadat was having marks of injuries on his neck and hand.

He said they called a nationwide protest on Tuesday against the police action while at 6:00pm they would bring out a procession in their central committee office towards Dhaka University.