Nusrat Jahan Rafi: 16 sentenced to death for burning Bangladeshi teenager alive

‘The teacher touched me, I will fight this crime till my last breath,’ teenager said before she died

The headteacher of a religious school was among 16 people sentenced to death in Bangladesh for burning a teenage girl alive after she refused to withdraw a sexual harassment complaint against him.

Nusrat Jahan Rafi, 19, was doused in kerosene and set on fire on the roof of her school in April by the gang of attackers in the town of Feni.

She had accused the headteacher of repeatedly touching her inappropriately and police said in their charge sheet the murder was carried out at his order.

Rafi’s death sparked public outrage and mass demonstrations in Bangladesh calling for her killers to be punished.

“We are happy with the judgment,” public prosecutor Hafez Ahmed said after the court verdict.

Rafi had said the headteacher repeatedly touched her inappropriately in his office.

On 6 April, 11 days after the alleged sexual assault, she was lured to the roof of her school as she went to sit her final exams.

She was then surrounded by several people and pressured into withdrawing the case against her headteacher, who set her on fire when she refused.

Rafi was taken to hospital with burns covering 80 per cent of her body.

On the way, she recorded a statement on her brother’s phone in which she identified some of her attackers as her fellow students.

“The teacher touched me, I will fight this crime till my last breath,” she said. She died four days later, on 10 April.

Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s prime minister, had met Rafi’s family and vowed to bring the killers to justice.