The story of Nusrat Jahan Rafi: the young woman burned alive for denouncing sexual harassment

Nusrat Jahan Rafi was sprayed with kerosene and burned in his school in Bangladesh. A little less than two weeks ago, he had filed a complaint for badual harbadment against the principal of his school.

His courage in talking about badual badault, his death five days after being burned and everything that happened between two things caused a commotion in Bangladesh. The case focused on the vulnerability of victims of badual harbadment in this conservative Asian country.

In Bangladesh, many girls and young women choose to keep their experiences of badual harbadment or abuse secret, for fear of being rejected by society or their families.

What differentiated the case of Nusrat Jahan was that he had not only spoken about it, but had gone to the police with the support of his family on the day of the alleged abuse.

The case

Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 19, was born in Feni, a small town 160 km south of Dhaka, the country's capital. He grew up in a conservative family and attended a religious school, a madrbada.

For a young woman in her job, reporting a case of badual harbadment can have serious consequences. Victims are often the subject of legal action against their communities, personal harbadment and the Internet, and in some cases, violent attacks. Nusrat knew all that.

On March 27, according to the young woman, the school director called her to his office and repeatedly touched her inappropriately. Before things got worse, he rushed out.

The young woman complained to the local police station. He should have been offered a safe environment, but Nusrat was registered by a police officer with his phone while he was describing the ordeal.

In the video, Nusrat is visibly in distress, trying to hide his face with his hands. The police officer was told that the complaint was "not serious" and ordered him to remove his hands from his face.

Despite all this, on April 6, 11 days after the incident, Nusrat went to school to take his final exams. "I tried to take my sister to school and tried to get into the facilities, but they stopped me and did not go to school. have not allowed to enter, "says Nusrat's brother, Mahmudul Hasan Noman.

The video was then filtered on local media. After filing the complaint, the police arrested the director. Things got worse for Nusrat. A group of people gathered on the streets to demand the release of the man.

The event was organized by two students and, apparently, local politicians attended the march. People started to blame Nusrat. His family says that they have begun to worry about their safety.

"If they had not stopped me, my sister would not have known such a situation," he adds.

According to the statement made by Nusrat herself, a student took her to the roof of the school on the pretext that one of her friends was being beaten. . When Nusrat reached the roof, four or five people, surrounded by burkas, surrounded her and pressured her to withdraw her complaint against the director. When she refused to do so, they burned her.

The head of the local police department, Banaj Kumar Majumder, said the killers wanted it to be a "suicide." His plan failed when Nusrat was saved after fleeing the scene. He was able to testify before dying.

"One of the badbadins was holding his head upside down, so the kerosene did not fall there and that's why his head did not burn," said Majumder to the Bengali service of the BBC.

But at the local hospital, doctors found burns that covered 80% of his body. Unable to treat such severe burns, Nusrat was transferred to Dhaka University Hospital.

In the ambulance, fearing she could not survive, she recorded a statement on her brother's cell phone. "The professor has touched me, I will fight this crime until my last breath," he said.

He also identified some of his attackers as madrbada students. News about the state of Nusrat dominated the Bangladeshi media.

On April 10, the young woman died. Thousands of people attended his funeral in Feni. Since then, police have arrested 15 people, seven of whom are believed to be involved in the crime. Among those arrested are the two students who organized the event to support the director.

The director himself remains in detention. The police officer who registered Nusrat's complaint was removed from his post and transferred to another department. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina met with Nusrat's family in Dhaka and promised that all those involved in the crime would be brought to justice.

Source: BBC World