Female Student Allegedly Burned To Death In Islamic School For Reporting Sexual Harassment
Nusrat Jahan Rafi, a 19-year-old female Bangladeshi student, was allegedly doused with kerosene and burned to death only weeks after she reported being sexually harassed.
A student at a madrassa, or Islamic school, Nusrat was led up to the roof of the school on April 6, where five burqa-clad people allegedly lit her on fire.
The killers reportedly wanted “to make it look like a suicide,” according to Banaj Kumar Majumder, as originally reported by the
BBC.
She died days later at a hospital in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, with 80% of her body covered in burns.
Nearly two weeks before, on March 27, she was called into the headmaster’s office, where she said the headmaster “touched her in an inappropriate manner.”
After the alleged incident, Nusrat went to the police, where they recorded her with their phones and belittled her, saying that her complaint was “no big deal,” according to the BBC.
The headmaster was arrested after the incident was reported.
Two male students then started a protest on behalf of the headmaster, and soon a group of people gathered demanding for his release.
So far, 15 people have been arrested, including the two male students who had organized the original protests for the headmaster, according to the BBC report.
While on the roof, her assailants attempted to force her to withdraw her accusation against the headmaster, but she refused. After refusing to withdraw her accusation, they allegedly held her down by the head, poured kerosene on her and lit her on fire.
After the attack, she ran downstairs where other students put out the flames, as reported by the
Daily Star.
Allegedly the students had met with the headmaster in prison to organize the attack, as reported by Prothom Alo, a
Bangladeshi newspaper.
The Bangladeshi Prime Minister said that “Nusrat’s killers won’t be spared.”
In the ambulance, Nusrat recorded a statement on her brother’s phone saying, “The teacher touched me, I will fight this crime till my last breath,” reported by the BBC.
The aftermath of her death has caused massive
protests in Bangladesh and people seeking justice for her murder.
