The Facebook account of a Kerala-based journalist was blocked after she received threatening comments on her post about alleged child sex abuse her classmates had to face in a Madrasa in the state almost two decades ago.
VP Rajeena wrote the post on 21 November, alleging that some male teachers at the Madrasa in Kozhikode city sexually assaulted young boys and girls. Her post evoked abuses and threats on social media from people who questioned her "motivation."
"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," The Hindu quoted Rajeena as saying.
Her account was first blocked on Tuesday after several people reported against it, but she managed to restore it. However, it was again blocked on Wednesday. The account is active once again.
"After I put up the Facebook post my account was blocked for some time and it later came back. But from Wednesday morning it was blocked again and has not been reinstated by Facebook," she told The News Minute.
Recalling the incidents of her childhood, Rajeena alleged that an ustad (teacher) used to call the boys in her class, forced them to unzip their shorts and touched their private parts. She also alleged that another teacher, in his sixties, would sexually abuse the girls in the class when there used to be power cuts.
"On one occasion, a senior among the girls exploded at the ustad with a warning that she would reveal everything to the senior ustad,'' The Indian Express quoted Rajeena as saying.
Her revelations come a few days after Kerala Education Minister and Muslim league leader PK Abdu Rabb spoke against boys and girls sitting together in school classes. This was followed by an incident at Farook College in Kozhikode, where a student was suspended for protesting against the management's decision not to allow boys and girls sit next to each other in the class.
It was this incident that prompted Rajeena to come out with the startling revelations.
"One of the other criticisms was on the timing of my revelations. I thought of making this public after I started hearing the opinions of conservative community organisations on the question of gender equality, related to the Feroke college issue. The suppressed anger of so many years might have also come out through the post," Rajeena says.
Rajeena is a sub-editor at the Kerala chapter of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind's Madhyamam Daily.
