Sex, lies and a brutal murder in a madrassa.
Over a grim concrete gateway in a small town near Dhaka, a blue sign reads, “Sonagazi Islamia Fazil (Degree) Madrashah”. This is where Nusrat Jahan Rafi, a teenage girl in Bangladesh, was burned alive.
The girls who attacked Nusrat wore burkas. So did she. This was, after all, an Islamic school. And even when murdering, its female pupils were expected to abide by Islamic principles of conduct.
The madrassa students who held Nusrat down and helped tie her hands and legs, before she was set on fire, were acting under the authority of leaders of the local Awami Muslim League and their own principal who had been an emir with Jamaat-e-Islami whose mandate calls for an Islamic state.
The girls weren’t trusted to do the actual killing. That allegedly fell to Javed Hossain, a man, if you can call him that, wearing a burka, who poured kerosene on Nusrat while she lay tied up on the roof.
He struck a match and set her on fire. Then he went down to take an exam. The same exam that the burning girl was supposed to take.
Outside the court, after his conviction and death sentence, his mother called on Allah.
There were other men in burkas on the roof that day. Saifur Rahman Mohammad Zobair tore away Nusrat’s burka and used it to tie her up. Shahadat Hossain Shamim had bought the burkas that the men wore with money from a leader in the Awami Muslim League and gagged her with his hand while she was set on fire. More of the conspirators guarded the area to keep anyone else from intruding.
In court, the girls, now women, one of them a mother, went on wearing their burkas. When they were taken out of court, with a death sentence pronounced on their heads, they went with their faces already covered. While Nusrat covered her face much of the time, in the final photos, her face is uncovered, while her body is swathed is white bandages. When the pupils of the Islamic school set her on fire, 80% of her body was left burned. And she died that way in Dhaka Hospital for the crime of telling the truth.
The truth helped bring down the Madrassa and its principal, Siraj Ud Doula, a small scowling goateed man, the tips of the goatee dyed a noxious orange-red, who sent Nusrat to her death, and whose plot against her, led to a death sentence for 16 men and women, including himself. His crimes dragged in his students, the Awami Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islami, and shocked all of Bangladesh.
The first truth that Nusrat told was that Siraj had sexually harassed her. She continued telling the truth while her brother taped her on his phone in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
It was also the final truth she told in a hospital bed, declaring, “I will fight till my last breath.”
Nusrat had not been meant to survive to tell that truth. After accusing her Islamic school principal of sexual harassment, she had faced violent assaults and death threats. Then, a plot had been hatched to have other students lure her to the roof of the madrassa, tie her up, set her on fire, and make her death look like a suicide. But the headscarf she had been tied with burned up and she survived to tell the truth.
That truth means death for her murderers.
Siraj had come to court smiling. Her former principal and Jaamat-e-Islami emir left it in tears.
In Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, girls often die without any explanation. The conviction of the 16 men and women who plotted Nusrat’s death provides a horrid window into how such girls die. And how high up the crimes extend. At one end of the murder plot were schoolboys and schoolgirls. On the other end was their jailed principal, and local leaders of the Awami Muslim League.
The Avami Muslim League is the governing party of Bangladesh. Its roots go back to the Muslim League that divided India, and created Pakistan, before Bengali nationalists went on to create Bangladesh.
The trial of Nusrat’s killers dragged in Maksud Alam, a local councilor, a member of the governing body of the madrassa, and acting general secretary of the Awami League in Feni, the small town outside Dhaka where the atrocity took place. Also facing justice was Ruhul Amin, the Madrassa’s vice president, and the local Awami League president. The links between the Feni leaders of the Awami League and the Islamic school highlighted the interconnections between Islamism, politics and, the brutal crime.
Before the murder, some figures in the Awami League had staged rallies in defense of Siraj. One of those was Alam, who had not only participated in protests, but also helped provide funding for the crime.
And Ruhul Amin’s job had been to keep the cops away while the murder was taking place.
Siraj, the Islamic school principal who had sexually harassed the teenage girl before trying to have her killed, had been a former emir with Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami. Unlike the Awami League, Jamaat is a genuinely hard-core Islamist movement which has been responsible for numerous atrocities in the past. Its agenda is a full Islamic state with the uncompromisingly brutal application of Islamic Sharia law.
Setting a teenage girl on fire would not have fazed Jamaat’s Islamists who had tortured, raped and killed anyone standing in the way of their vision of an Islamic state. But Siraj had proven too nasty even for Jamaat which had expelled its former emir. The madrassa where Nusrat was killed had been Jamaat territory and the former principal’s associates had been Jamaat loyalists. After Siraj’s sexual habits became too much, the madrassa shifted sides to the Awami Muslim League whose local leaders conspired to cover-up his perversions with murder.
The Islamic school principal’s associates in Jamaat-e-Islami and the Awami Muslim League had been bribed and the police had turned a blind eye to events at the madrassa. All this had to be done because Siraj had entangled the local Islamic political leaders with his own crimes until they had no choice but to help murder a teenage girl to protect their sources of income, power and their Islamic legitimacy.
It took 16 men and women, and more behind the scenes, to try and kill that teenage girl.
Nur Uddin, Siraj’s aide at the madrassa, and Hafez Abdul Kader, a teacher at the madrassa, had allegedly served as the interface with their jailed boss. And after no amount of pressure seemed to dissuade Nusrat from telling her story, the Islamic pervert who had assaulted her, told his minions to set her on fire on the roof of his own school.
Nusrat’s murder wasn’t unusual. What was unusual is that the killers were caught and will be punished. And that may be due less to public outrage than to the political divisions within the Awami League. Girls like her die all the time. Their deaths are ruled a suicide. Or they disappear and are said to have run away.
And that’s what would have happened if the 19-year-old girl hadn’t been so determined to live.
The horror of the crime, Nusrat’s determination to live and to denounce her killers, were vital. As she lay burned badly, the teenage girl told a familiar story, but one that very few murdered girls live to tell.
The Islamic leaders she had trusted had betrayed her, they had assaulted her, covered up their crimes, and then tried to kill her, but burned and dying slowly, she had brought them down anyway.
As her killers left the courtroom weeping, the ghost of the teenage girl followed them into the sunlight.
Bangladesh, Pakistan, and the Muslim world are full of such ghosts. They are usually invisible. Their voices have been turned to ash, dirt and dust. There is no counting the number of women and girls who have been killed. But in Bangladesh, one girl managed to speak and be heard even after her murder.
Herb says
As long as the Quran survives in Islamic countries, there will always be death and destruction. If Islam ever had a fair and merciful background, it would be before a self proclaimed prophet warlord had come to Medina then took the pleasure of killing anyone who questions him, and the Quran should not have ever based his life on being a perfect man to follow. Why does a Creator have any reason to kill his creation? There is only death to Muslims and even their own are killed for not keeping the oath of Muhammad to kill anyone who refuses to join a death cult.
abad says
Moslems worship Satan(Allah), that is why Islam is all about death and destruction.
elee says
Now now….we mustnt be cultural imperialists, or presume to tell other peoples that their cultures are rubbish. So their deity burns little girls alive, well isnt it condescending of us westerners to presume that love and turning the other cheek—say nothing of our distaste for child rape—are somehow preferable to their eternal mud-hovel credos?. Why, just ask Ilhan Omar, Im sure shell urge her enlightened views upon you.
Infidel says
I’m fine w/, actually prefer us absolutely not bothering about what goes on there – it’s their countries. Only caveat – not ONE of them should ever be allowed into any non Muslim country – be it India, Canada, US, Australia or anywhere else in the world
elee says
Well, when you figure out how to implement that, let us know. Meanwhile I have a problem about giving up on all the little girls in the world……including Muslim victims inside our boundaries. They certainly intend to conquer and enslave the world, regardless of geographic or national boundaries, so I submit we have to fight them everywhere.
Infidel says
This story wasn’t about Muslim victims within our boundaries: obviously, they’re subject to our laws, the delusions of Ilhan and Rashida notwithstanding. This story was about an unfortunate girl in Bangladesh who got targeted for whatever reason, despite being a Muslimah herself. That’s Bangladesh’s problem, not ours
As it is, the US has put a cap on the number of refugees it’ll take in this year, and it also has the travel ban. I’d quietly add a number of countries to that list – Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Qatar, Turkey, Malaysia… and let the people of those countries figure out somewhere else to go. If other countries like Canada, Australia, UK, France, Italy, Germany had any sense, they’d do things similar. As it is, Muslim immigration to the US has gone down by 90%: do the above things, and we can bring it down even lower
And yeah, they may intend to conquer the world, but if we don’t allow them to come, there is no way they can. Since few countries see this as an Islam vs the rest conflict, it’s worth letting every country handle it their own way
DP111 says
We need to bring in Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan. More Diversity.
Dawne Swift says
What a brave young woman. And what foul crimes these people have committed. When first reading the article I thought maybe it gave a glimmer of hope, in that these criminals had been brought to justice, but then reading on saw that this was only because of political infighting, not because of a genuine attempt by the establishment to civilise their country. Islamists may say that these crimes don’t reflect the true Islam, but they must, because otherwise how can so many Muslims be caught up in murdering a young woman by setting her on fire, if they did not think they were entitled/obliged to do this through the teachings of Islam?
ElderlyZionist says
Convicted is one thing. I doubt any of them will actually hang.
Michael Copeland says
Powerful writing. Thank you.
Angemon says
?
gravenimage says
A Burned Girl’s Ghost Brings Down Her Islamic Killers
……………..
This *poor girl*. This is a rare case of any of these crimes being prosecuted in Dar-al-Islam.
After all, sexually harrassing and raping girls is perfectly Islamic, as is “Honor Killing”.
abad says
Islam has not now nor has it ever valued the female gender.
That poor girl.
Kay says
I just heard something (not new new but I hadn’t known) that when they took our American embassy workers hostage in Iran, the Mohammeden fighters used women and girls as human shields.
gravenimage says
This would not surprise, Kay.
And I know they used a woman to unlock the US Embassy’s gates:
About 6:30 a.m., the ringleaders gathered between three hundred and five hundred selected students and briefed them on the battle plan. A female student was given a pair of metal cutters to break the chains locking the embassy’s gates and hid them beneath her chador.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis#Prelude
Of course, Americans would balk at shooting girls.
FireFox says
You can take the barbarian out of an Islamic country, but the barbarism of Islam travels along with them. There is no moderation or enlightenment of Islam while the koran still exists. Islam remains an eternal existential threat to all mankind and to freedom. It is a threat worse than Nazism or communism, yet the looney left, including the LGB, embraces it for its votes. Insanity! Prepare for wars on our free land.
Anne Smith says
Dreadful to think that this barbarous country receives so much foreign aid from us.
Time to cut it off.
gravenimage says
The US *has* now cut off most of our “aid’ money to Pakistan, because of terrorism.
Dr. Doom says
One of the most gruesome accounts I have ever read of the truth about “The religion of peace.” Thank you.
Michael says
Unbelievable!!! Since we DON’T have a soul but we ARE A LIVING SOUL, THAT DIES, there can be NO GHOSTS EITHER. All who claim to have seen a ghost have done things to attract demons to them, and they’ve seen demons PRETENDING to be dead loved ones. It happens all the time. People who claim their grandmother came to them, saw a demon pretending to be, and imitating, their dead grandmother. Very common occurrence.
Linda Rivera says
R.I.P. Innocent child. Your satanic murderers will stand before the HOLY ONE, an Angry God, the Just Judge, on Judgment Day. And tremble greatly. And spend all eternity in hell.
God promised in the Bible, Proverbs 12:14 “The deeds of a man’s hands will return to him.”
God will give back to the Evil Ones the terrible things they did to others. God keeps all His promises.