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NY technician found guilty in fiery murder attempt

Arthur J Pais in New York

Mohammed Mohsin quivered and shook his head in disbelief on Friday evening when he was handcuffed in Kew Gardens Supreme Court in New York and led off to jail. His friends said he had hoped to be out of the court and go to the mosque near his house to pray -- and then have a victory party with his friends.

But it is not the image of a shaken and quivering man the jury saw through the 10-day-long trial.

As prosecutor Davanand Singh catalogued the alleged abusive acts of the 31-year-old immigrant from Bangladesh against Syeda Sufian, including setting her aflame on September 13, 1995, the jury listened horrified. And it found the computer technician guilty of attempted murder. He will be sentenced next month. The judge could sentence him from eight-and-half years to 25 years in prison.

Mohsin's defence lawyers, Ken Schreiber and Stephen Singer, said they would appeal the verdict. They reiterated their argument that Sufian, 30, also from Bangladesh, is a disturbed person who had tried to commit suicide a year before the fiery 1995 incident.

But to Sakhi for South Asian Women, a non-profit organisation that organized its first-ever demonstrations outside Mohsin's home six months after the incident, and counselled Sufian, the verdict was a victory for abused women.

"Our goal was to support Syeda, to demand justice, and to mobilize our community to expose and ostracize Mohsin and abusers like him," Prema Vora, a Sakhi leader, said.

Sufian, whose face, hands and other parts of the body, still have scars from the incident, hugged Vora and cried when she heard the verdict. She was not in the court when it was read but joined the prosecutors and Sakhi volunteers within an hour.

"No man should ever treat a woman the way he treated me," Sufian said.

For Sakhi, the court victory was a signal to abused women that justice could be won, even though court battles are invariably protracted.

"People from South Asia do not have access to guns," Vora told reporters. "What is the easiest way to kill someone? Douse them with gasoline."

Mohsin and Sufian had lived together for over a year in Queens when she began asking him to marry her in a civil court as per his promise, several accounts say. According to Sufian's advocates Mohsin tried to kill her when she said she would reveal their relationship to his family. According to Sakhi, the two had been married in a mosque, though the defense denies it. Newspapers here have routinely described Sufian as Mohsin's girl friend. Some people in the community believe that Sufian also wanted a civil marriage but Mohsin would not agree to it.

Mohsin's lawyers, who called the verdict "a horrible miscarriage of justice," stressed that she had poured gasoline to get Mohsin's attention. They said the jury bought Sufian's story -- which was presented in gruesome details as she showed her scars to the jury -- and disregarded the facts.

The prosecutors said an enraged Mohsin emerged from the bathroom of their apartment when Sufian was washing dishes and yelled: "See how I am going to kill you."

He disregarded her screams and warning: "You can't get away with this. We are in America, you know."

He lit a match -- and she began to burn in a few seconds. "I thought I was going to die -- and my family is nowhere around me," she reminisced.

But her own efforts to put out the fire and the screams saved Sufian's life. Thirty per cent of her body suffered burns.

Davanand Singh said the verdict sent a message to all abused women.

"The criminal justice system will not turn a deaf ear to women who muster the courage to stand up to their abuses," she said.

Sakhi for South Asian Women, at http://www.sakhi.com, is a non-profit organization working to end violence against women through a multi-pronged strategy of education, advocacy, leadership development, and organizing. Its services are free and confidential. PO Box 20208, Greeley Square Station, New York, NY, 10001.)

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