Monstrous teacher blackmails and rapes 20 schoolgirls

A teacher of a private school at Mijmiji Kandapara of Siddhirganj upazila, Narayanganj, was arrested on Thursday on charges of repeatedly raping at least 20 students and even some of their mothers for several years, and blackmailing them too.

The law enforcement also arrested the headmaster of Oxford International School in Mijmiji, Rafiqul Islam Zulfiqar, for aiding and abetting Ariful Islam, assistant teacher of the school, reports news agency UNB.

Local people said Ariful joined the school as its English and mathematics teacher eight years ago. He used to run a coaching centre in a flat near the school.

The teacher used to take compromising photos and videos of girl students and rape them, resorting to blackmail. He used the photos and video clips to threaten the girls and rape then repeatedly.

Ariful reportedly even raped the mothers of 6 or 7 of the victims, also blackmailing them with compromising photos and video clips.

As the matter became public, guardians and locals went to the school on Thursday noon and beat up Ariful and headmaster Rafiqul before handing them over to the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police.

The officer-in-charge of Siddhirganj police station said they found some of the photos and video clips on the mobile phone of the assistant teacher.

On condition of anonymity, a guardian said his daughter, now a Class-IX student, was first raped by Ariful when she was in Class-V, “but she didn’t disclose the matter.”

Three months ago, Ariful was arrested on charges of sexually harassing a female teacher of his school. However, headmaster Rafiqul Islam had him released from the police station, said another guardian.

Siddhirganj upazila unit Awami League general secretary Yasin Miah said the teacher also raped the mothers of at least 6 or 7 victims, blackmailing them.

Additional police superintendent of RAB-11 Md Alep Uddin said Ariful, during primary interrogation, confessed that he had raped at least 20 schoolgirls.