Please refresh the page and retry. Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 18, who was from Feni, miles south of the capital Dhaka, was tricked into going onto a rooftop at her madrassa, or school, on April 6, where at least four people doused her in kerosene and set her alight, reported Human Rights Watch. She was attacked for refusing to back down from an earlier allegation of an attempted sexual assault against her headmaster. She died four days later from burns covering 80 percent of her body.
T he police handling of her case has compounded public anger. A ccording to the BBC, she appears distressed, trying to cover her face with her hands. The video was later leaked to the local media. Death threats ensued and the pressure to withdraw the complaint worsened after the headmaster was arrested.
On April 11, as she tried to enter her school to sit her final exams, she was lured to the roof and surrounded by four people wearing burkas, demanding that she renounce her accusations. She refused and they set her on fire, attempting to make it look like suicide. Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, expressed deep sorrow over her death and personally ordered law enforcement agencies to find the perpetrators and take punitive action. T o date, 15 people have reportedly been arrested, seven of them allegedly involved in the murder, and one has confessed.
The headmaster remains in custody and the police officer who filmed Ms Rafi has been removed from his post and transferred to another department.
Human Rights Watch noted that the murder occurred close to the fourth anniversary of a case of mass sexual harassment of at least 20 women during Bengali New Year celebrations at Dhaka University in There has been little progress on their court case. According to Ain O Salish Kendra, a Bangladeshi human rights organisation, there were over cases of rape reported in , but the actual numbers are likely to be higher given the fear of many victims of being shamed and humiliated.
