Bangladeshi ‘July Uprising’ Teacher Arrested in the US on Bestiality Charges

Staff Correspondent

A university teacher of Bangladeshi origin has been arrested in Florida, USA, on charges of filming, distributing or storing images and videos of sexual activities with animals. His name is Rayyan Abdul Baten. He is an assistant professor at the University of South Florida (USF) in the country. During the July 2024 movement, he was active on the social media platform Facebook by writing several times against the Sheikh Hasina government.

According to arrest records in Hillsborough County, Florida, Ryan Abdul Baten was arrested on October 28 and charged with taking, distributing, or storing images or videos of sexual activity with an animal. He faces 13 separate charges in the incident. Each charge is listed as a third-degree felony.

Booking records show he was held at the Falkenberg Road Jail in Florida after his arrest. The records show bail of $2,500 for each charge. However, the charges in the arrest records have not yet been proven in court.

Rayyan Abdul Baten is a former student of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet). According to his resume published on the university’s website, he graduated from BUET in 2016. He later obtained his master’s degree in 2018 and his PhD in 2022 from the University of Rochester in the United States.

He is currently an assistant professor in the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, and Computing at the University of South Florida. He is also the director of the university’s Computational Social Science and AI (CSSAI) Lab.