'Punish madrasa teacher'

Local people staged a demonstration at Hapania Goysapara village in Trishal upazila yesterday, demanding exemplary punishment of a madrasa  teacher for harassing a 13-year-old schoolgirl.

Sohagi Begum, daughter of day labourer Nazrul Islam, committed suicide after being harassed by her teacher Mobarak Hossain, 26, of local Kawranbai Furkania Madrasa on Saturday.

Sohagi, a fourth grader at local Goysapara Government Primary School, used to go to the adjacent madrasa to learn Arabic. She went there on Saturday morning when the teacher harassed her after the class was over. 

On learning about the matter, local people rushed to the spot but the perpetrator ran away. The girl was taken to her house.

Being upset, Sohagi shut herself up in a room of her house and committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling, around two hours after the incident, said Trishal Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Md Jakiur Rahman.

Locals caught Mobarak from his in-laws' house in the village on Saturday and handed him over to police.

Mobarak was produced yesterday before the Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court that sent him to jail, the OC said, adding that he confessed during interrogation that he used to harass the girl on various occasions.

The girl was buried at her family graveyard early yesterday after autopsy at Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, he added.