Dhaka, June 29 -- At a routine security checkpoint in Hatirjheel, law-enforcing officers were stopping and questioning drivers and inspecting vehicles as part of their nightly patrols. That's when two young women pulled up on a motorcycle, both without helmets.

Officers flagged them down to process the traffic violation, but what happened next sparked a wave of public outrage -- not over the police action, but over what some journalists at the scene did next.

Instead of simply documenting the police work, several reporters turned their cameras directly on the two women. Despite the women's repeated, desperate pleas -- hands clasped in pleading, faces visibly distressed -- the cameras stayed fixed on them, capturing every moment of their...