COSMETICS millionaire Muhammad Sajjad Kamarul Zaman, better known as Nur Sajat, said in an interview with The New York Times yesterday that she was kicked, pinned down and groped during her meeting with officials from Jabatan Agama Islam Selangor (Jais) in January.

Called to their offices to explain herself after being seen in a mosque wearing women’s clothing, Nur Sajat said that “at least three men kicked her and pinned her down”.

They groped her breasts, she said in the interview, after which she was handcuffed, arrested and officially charged in a Shariah court.

Nur Sajat also said that she was held overnight in a male detention facility.

Nur Sajat had said in a recent Instagram post that she was now settled in Australia after being given asylum in the country recently following her flight to Thailand where she was arrested for an immigration offence.

The 36-year-old said she fled to Thailand earlier this year because she “was abused and treated inhumanely” by religious officials in Malaysia.

She was arrested by Thai authorities last month over an invalid passport and later released on bail.

In the New York Times interview, Nur Sajat said her mother had witnessed the assault at the Jais office, and had confronted one of the officers, asking him “how pious Muslims could do something like that”.

Nur Sajat then said the man responded by saying that as she was a man “it was OK”. The New York Times reported that Nur Sajat’s account of the assault was corroborated by an activist who had spoken to her mother.

“They think it is justified to touch my private parts and my breasts because they perceive me as a male person,” Nur Sajat said in the interview.

 “They didn’t treat me with any compassion or humanity.”

The entrepreneur said she had lodged a police report following the incident, after which a Jais officer had been called in to give a statement.

However, Nur Sajat said, no further action had been taken.

It was reported today that Jais has refused to comment on Nur Sajat’s claims. – October 21, 2021.