Abuses and threats were hurled at journalist VP Rajeena when she opened up on Facebook about the trauma she allegedly suffered while studying at a Madrasa. Her detractors complained against the post and Facebook blocked her account on Wednesday.
On Sunday, Rajeena took to Facebook to share the horror of the incidents that had transpired many years ago. In her post (that was written in Malayalam) she wrote about a teacher at a Sunni Madarassa in Kozhikode, Kerala. The ‘Ustad’, who was around 40 or 45 years of age had made it a habit of touching the private parts of her male classmates. The boys would be called to the teachers’ room where they would be sexually molested by him under the pretext of measuring their size. She recalls the discomfort of the boys and watching them squirm made the girl students feel uncomfortable as well.
In the second part of the post, when she was in class four or five, another male teacher who was more than 60 years old touched the girl students inappropriately during the standard half-hour power cuts in the evening. In the flickering candle-light the teacher would go up to the girls benches, as he would fondle and poke them.
She brings up a particular incident of her classmate who was repeatedly abused by the teacher who finally snapped and threatened to complain to the headmaster. Rajeena goes on to write about the lasting effect of the trauma, and even today when she sees girls go to the Madarasa in the evening these memories come back to haunt her.
“The abuses came in large numbers, questioning my motive at making these revelations. They pictured it as an attack on the religion. I never tried to generalise this as the behaviour of all madrasa instructors. I just shared what I experienced. But many others from the community did come out in support. A few shared with me similar experiences which they had kept as secret all these years,” Rajeena told The Hindu .
Rajeena also finds it ironic that the ones who were unable to accept the alleged traumatic happenings are also the same people who once spoke against intolerance on other issues.
Rajeena also believes that this reaction is mainly because the incident was being recalled by a woman.