A teenage Bangladeshi girl who reported being sexually harassed has died after being set on fire at school. Police and school authorities had ignored her complaints, BBC reported.

Nineteen-year-old Nusrat Jahan Rafi was reportedly doused with kerosene and set on fire by a mob of girls and boys on the roof of her school located south of the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka.

Her courage in speaking out against sexual assault, her death five days after being set alight and everything that happened in-between has gripped Bangladesh and brought attention to the vulnerability of sexual harassment victims in this conservative South Asian country.

Nusrat suffered burns to 80 per cent of her body during the attack after she refused to withdraw her rape accusation against the headmaster of her school.

Police have since arrested 15 people, seven of whom they believe were directly involved in the attack. At least two male students were among those detained.

In her recorded video confession to the local police, Nusrat said that on 27 March, the headmaster of her Islamic school called her into his office. She identified the headmaster as Siraj-ud-Daula and said he began touching her inappropriately. She said that she managed to flee the school before going to the police station the same day to report the alleged crime.

This resulted in backlash against her and her family, with male pupils from her school organising a rally in support of the headmaster.

Her subsequent death also provoked outrage in the area, with people taking to the streets to demand police arrest those responsible for the tragic incident.

On 10 April, she died. Thousands of people turned out for her funeral in Feni.