Dhaka: Sixteen people, including the head of a madrasa, were sentenced to death by a Bangladeshi court on Thursday for burning alive a teenage girl student for refusing to withdraw a sexual harassment complaint against him.

The gruesome murder took place in April when a gang of killers poured kerosene over 18-year-old Nusrat Jahan Rafi and set her on fire on the roof of the madrasa in the southeastern Feni, some 162 kms outside the capital Dhaka.