4 land in jail over sexual assault on madrasa girl

A Jashore court yesterday sent a madrasa teacher to jail on charges of molesting a fifth grader student in the district’s Sharsha upazila on Thursday night.

Three more also landed in prison for backing up the molester and threatening the victim’s family.

M Moshiur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Sharsha Police Station, said the victim’s father filed a case against four men under the Prevention of Women and Child Repression Act on Thursday night.

Police arrested the four -- the madrasa’s assistant teacher Shariful Islam, 24; managing committee member Nurul Islam, 32; principal Mohsin Ali, 36; and office assistant Jamal Uddin, 30 -- on the same night.

The victim’s father alleged that Shariful had touched his daughter inappropriately in the class and threatened her of dire consequences if she shared it with anybody.

Although the principal and management of the madrasa were informed about the incident through another teacher, they did not take any action. On top of that, they threatened the father of the victim, he added.

Meanwhile, president of the madrasa management committee Yakub Hossain Biswas said they informed the matter to upazila education officer, upazila nirbahi officer and chairman.

“People involved in the incident should be and will be punished,” he added.