Protests against unending incidents of rape, sexual harassment and torture against women across Bangladesh flared up in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country on Monday as a video of a 37-year-old woman getting sexually assaulted and tortured by a group of youths in Begumganj upazila in Noakhali went viral on social media.

The video showed that the youths, aged between 20 and 30, stripped the housewife naked, molested her and started beating and dragging her despite her cries as she kept begging for mercy holding on to one of the offender’s legs in a village of Eklashpur union of the upazila.

It showed that the woman’s effort to safeguard her honour went in vein as the offenders paid no heed to her cries and entreaties although she kept at it and even called out to them as ‘father’.

One of the offenders grabbed the video of the whole scene on the night of September 2 and uploaded it on social media on Sunday, 32 days after the incident, police officials said.

After publishing the video on Sunday, police rescued the victim who lodged two cases, one under Women and Children Repression Prevention Act and the other under Pornography Control Act, with Begumganj Police Station on Sunday evening, Noakhali superintend of police Alamgir Hossain told.

He said that they arrested Abdur Rahim, 22, and Md Rahmatullah, 38, of Jaykrishnapur village of the upazila on Sunday evening in the case.

The SP said that drives were on to nab the other offenders.

Besides, a team of the Rapid Action Battalion on early Monday arrested prime accused Nur Hossain Badal, 20, and Dalwal Bahini ringleader Md Dalwar Hossain, 26, of the same area from Kamrangirchar in Dhaka and Siddhirganj from Narayanganj respectively, RAB-11 commanding officer lieutenant colonel Khondoker Saiful Islam said in a press briefing.

He said that though Dalwar’s name was not mentioned in the case, all the accused were members of his gang.

Asked whether the detained ones had any political identity, he said they were not inclined to know these as any offender has no party.

Dalwar, in his Facebook wall, identified himself as a ‘soldier of Bangabandhu’s ideology’, used name of the ruling Awami League’s youth front Bangladesh Juba League and slogan ‘Joy Bangla-Joy Bangabandhu’ and urged to keep faith on ‘boat’, the electoral symbol of ruling Awami League.

Villagers said that Dalwar is a common face in meetings and procession of AL and Juba League in Begumganj and he runs a gang after his name and that he is loyal to the local AL lawmaker Mamunur Rashid Kiron.

Mamunur Rashid Kiron MP, also general secretary of Begumganj upazila AL, claimed that Dalwar neither had any connection to AL nor to any of its associate organisations.

Begumganj police station officer-in-charge Md Harun-ar-Rashid Chowdhury said that the victims named none of the offenders —  Nur Hossain Badal, 22, Md Rahim, 20, Abul Kalam, 22, Israfil Hossain, 22, Sahu, 21, Shamsuddin alias Sumon, 39, Abdur Rob, 41, Arif, 18 and Rahmat Ullah, 38, and the other seven or eight unidentified accused in both the cases.

He said that they produced two arrested accused Rahim and Rahmatullah before a Noakhali court that granted the police permission to interrogate them for six days in custody.

He said that the victim had given her statement before a court in Noakhali.

The victim in her case statement alleged that the offenders tied her husband, harassed her sexually and tortured her and grabbed video of the whole scene and had been giving ‘immoral proposals’ threatening her to spread the video and, as she refused, they uploaded the video, Begumganj police said.

The victim’s father said that they did not make it public as the offenders were influential.

In Dhaka, left-leaning student organisations jointly staged a demonstration for seven hours at Shahbagh intersection in the capital since 11:00am that created huge traffic congestions in the surrounding areas.