The majority Islamic nation of Bangladesh is, if some of the stories that I’m hearing from that place are correct, heading on a path that would turn it into being a similar Islamic shithole to Pakistan. Although Bangladesh is a Parliamentary democracy, led by a female Prime Minister, it is also a nation afflicted by terrible poverty, lack of education, corruption and of course Islam. The past has seen periods where jihadists have attacked the country, but at present the jihadists are somewhat quiescent after the government executed the leaders of the main jihadist group Jumaat Ul Mujahadeen. However that does not mean that the more negative aspects of Islam, such as violence against women, are not present in Bangladesh.
The story that I have to tell you today is particularly horrifying but also I’m afraid quite normal for Islam. According to a report in BD News24, a Bangladeshi news source (h/t ROP), a young girl made a complaint of sexual abuse against the head of an Islamic school. The Bangladeshi police arrested the headteacher but allies of the headteacher threatened the girls family in order to get them to drop the sex abuse allegation. In retaliation for the family’s refusal to drop the accusation, students at the school poured paraffin over the girl and set her alight.
BDNews24 said:
The severely burnt girl, Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 18, is undergoing treatment at the National Institute of Burn and Plastic Surgery in Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Police detained a teacher and a student for questioning over the incident at Sonagazi Islamia Senior Fazil Madrasa on Saturday morning, Sonagazi Police Station Inspector Md Kamal Hossain told bdnews24.com.
Police had already arrested Principal Siraj-ud-Daula after Nusrat’s mother filed the case against him over the alleged incident of sexual abuse on Mar 27, Rafi’s brother Mahmudul Hasan Noman told the media.
The followers of Siraj threatened the family to withdraw the case, Noman alleged.
Nusrat, daughter of AKM Musa from Charchandia village under Sonagazi Municipality, went to the madrasa on Saturday morning to sit for Alim exams, equivalent to HSC.
“Some students called her to the roof and threatened her to withdraw the case. They set fire to her after pouring kerosene on her when she refused to withdraw the case,” he said.
Police and others rescued her after hearing her cry and took her to Sonagazi Upazila Healt complex from where she was shifted to the Feni General Hospital.
Nusrat suffered an 80 percent burn on her body, according to Abu Taher Bhuiyan, a physician at the Feni hospital.
She was later sent to Dhaka for better treatment, the doctor said.
This is a truly appalling case but one that is indicative of the way that women, especially women who make complaints about abuse from men, are treated in Islamic nations. It seems that some of the students were very much on the side of the headteacher who is the subject of the sex abuse complaint and this may well have been part of the motivation for this attack. I don’t blame the girl for returning to the madrassa, she had little choice but to return in order to sit exams. Instead I place the blame on the school itself for failing to keep this girl safe and also the Islamic culture that created people who felt that it was OK to burn someone almost to death for making a complaint about abuse.
