publish time

24/10/2019

author name Arab Times

publish time

24/10/2019

author name Arab Times
FILE - In this Friday, April 19, 2019, file photo, protesters gather to demand justice for an 18-year-old woman Nusrat Jahan Rafi who was killed after she was set on fire for refusing to drop sexual harassment charges against her Islamic school's principal, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A court in eastern Bangladesh has sentenced the principal of the Islamic school and 15 others to death for killing Rafi, who died after being set on fire for refusing to drop sexual harassment charges against the principal. Judge Mamunur Rashid of the Women and Children Repression Prevention Tribunal on Thursday, Oct. 24, found Principal Siraj Ud Doula and others guilty of either killing her or ordering the murder in April. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu, File)

The principal of a religious school in Bangladesh was among 16 people sentenced to death on Thursday for the murder of a teenage girl who refused to withdraw a complaint of sexual harassment against him, the public prosecutor said.

The killers poured kerosene over Nusrat Jahan, 18, and set her on fire on the roof of her madrasa in April in the southeastern district of Feni. Police said in their chargesheet the murder was carried out on the orders of the principal. “The judgement proves that no one is above the law,” public prosecutor Hafez Ahmed told reporters after the court verdict. He said the defence lawyers had tried unsuccessfully to establish that Jahan had Calvo Sassoli committed suicide. (RTRS)