Kerala newspaper editor says woman scribe's post on sexual abuse in Madrassas had no merit

Abdurahman’s comments however give Rajeena’s posts added news value

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Kicking up a fresh row, the editor of Madhyamam –a Malayalam daily- O Abdurahman termed Rajeena’s Facebook posts as the usual female gossip stories that normally do the rounds at washing or bathing spots.

Around three months ago, VP Rajeena -a journalist with Madhyamam- had posted on her Facebook wall about the sexual abuses that her classmates had to face in a madarassa in her growing-up years.

The post soon went viral and received both bouquets and brickbats on social media.

In a recent interview given to the magazine ‘Mukhyadhara’, Abdurahman said that Madhyamam did not feel the need to do the Rajeena story -even though she was an employee- for the simple fact that the story per se had no news value.

He even went on to justify such sexual abuse saying it happened everywhere and not just in the madarassas.

“Once a person came to prophet Muhammed and said that he had sinned by kissing a girl forcefully. Though the Prophet did not react at that time, he later said that just by saying the Namaz, the man stood exonerated,” Abdurahman is quoted as saying.

He added that some people had certain weaknesses that should neither be generalized nor magnified and that he was against the belittling of the value of a madrassa education.

Rajeena had in her post written about an ‘ustaad’ (teacher) at a Sunni Madarassa in Kozhikode who would feel up her male classmates’ private parts. She described how young boys in the class would be summoned by him and asked to unzip their shorts.

Even as the boys squirmed –she wrote- the girls too were left embarrassed and shocked. The ustaad would then tell the boys that he was only checking the size.

She also talked about how even the girls in her class were not spared in her six years at the madarassa, alleging that another 60-plus ustaad would move around the class during power cuts and sexually abuse minor girls.

Rajeena had subsequently received a barrage of abuses and threats for the same.