A case was filed against five people, including Haimchar upazila chairman Nur Hossain Patwari after images of a politician and a then wealthy businessman clambering over groups of students who had been forced to form a human bridge went viral.

The incident took place during the annual sports day at Nilkamal Osmania High School in Haimchar upazila in Chandpur.

Abdul Kadir Gazi alias Ali Ahmed, a guardian filed the case with Haimchar Police under the Child Act on Wednesday night, said Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Haimchar Police officer‐in‐charge.

The other accused are general secretary of upazila unit Awami League, Humayun Patwari, president of the Nilkamal Osmania High School managing body, Mosharraf Hossain, Headmaster, Mansur Ahmed and Abul Bashar, members of the managing body.

Parents lodged complaints this week after dozens of students of Nilkamal Osmania High, on 30 January, were made to stand and form a symbolic ‘Padma bridge’ out of their bodies for Haimchar Upazila Chairman Nur Hossain Patwari, attended the programme as the chief guest, who then walked over them in Chandpur.

It was followed by a similar incident in which an businessman was seen walking on the shoulders of students in a celebration to mark his donation of a piece of land to a school in Jamalpur.

Photos of have since gone viral on social media and were widely published in local newspapers, sparking a welter of criticism.

‘This is a very disturbing and bizarre incident. I’ve directed the police to take the necessary legal steps,’ Shahabuddin Khan, chief government administrator of Jamalpur district, told AFP.

‘The students’ parents said they did not send their kids to school be part of this kind of thing which have a negative impact.’

Chandpur’s district administrator appeared to defend the mayor Nur Hossain, who is a ruling Awami League party official, saying it was a traditional celebration for an honoured guest.

‘But we’ve an ordered investigation. We are trying to find out whether the elected official did it intentionally,’ he told AFP, adding the mayor has since ‘apologised for his action’.

It was not immediately clear whether either man had actually broken the law but there were widespread calls on Facebook for their arrest on the grounds they had humiliated students.

‘The people who organise and participate in such events should be punished. We don’t need any tradition which requires belittlement of human beings,’ one Facebook user Ariul Islam wrote.

The video footage and image of the incident went viral on Facebook, which triggered a huge criticism across the country.