The motto drilled into every pupil at Abu Barokat was simple: *Sami’na wa ata’na* — we hear, and we obey. For years, that obedience shielded the school’s revered head teacher, Ahmad Imanuddin Sumar, known universally as Abah, from accountability. It took a clandestine network of former students, armed with smartphones and a shared trauma, to shatter the silence. Their investigation not only laid bare a pattern of sexual assault at one of Lombok’s most prestigious Islamic boarding schools but also forged an unlikely bond between two of its brightest alumni, a partnership that has endured police inaction, institutional betrayal, and the weight of cultural expectation to culminate in marriage.
A Whisper in Cairo
The spark ignited 5,000 miles from the manicured gardens of the Lombok campus. Yusron Azzahidi was in Jakarta; Ziadatur Rahmah, Zia to her friends, was studying in Cairo. A late-night call, heavy with nostalgia, fractured the carefully maintained facade of their school days. Zia disclosed that Abah had assaulted her when she was sixteen, luring her to his on-site residence under the guise of pastoral care. He had kissed her, groped her, told her he loved her. Only the frantic banging of his own child on the locked door had allowed her escape.
“I felt very dirty, ruined, and I was lost,” she would later recount.
Yusron, steeped in the school’s doctrine of deference, was paralysed. Yet the seed of doubt, once planted, refused to wither. He proposed a pact: they would find others. They reached out to Wanda Hamidah and Mahima Eka, fellow alumni scattered across the globe. A WhatsApp group became their war room. Slowly, painfully, the dam broke. A friend of Wanda’s remembered a girl crying in the bathroom during their final year; Abah, red-faced and breathless, searching for her. That girl was Sukma Rohana, still a student at the school.
The Evidence Mounts
Sukma’s testimony was harrowing. She was seventeen when Abah invited her for New Year prayers. Inside his house, he covered her mouth, forced her down, exposed himself. “He kept talking, saying he couldn’t control himself any more,” she said. “He tried to rape me.” She kicked him in the stomach and fled into the night, his torch beam slicing the darkness behind her.
Yusron, meticulous and methodical, compiled a seven-page dossier detailing the allegations of Sukma, Zia, and four other former students. It was a catalogue of abuse spanning years, documented with the precision of a legal brief. Wanda, leveraging her connections, secured a meeting with the Nahdlatul Wathan Diniyah Islamiyah (NWDI), the powerful foundation overseeing Abu Barokat and hundreds of sister institutions. The representatives listened. They promised action. They pledged to take the case to the police.
Three weeks later, Yusron’s phone buzzed. A text from his sister, urgent: Call me. He dialled. Abah answered. He was sitting in Yusron’s family home.
The Pressure Campaign
What followed was a masterclass in coercion, captured in recordings Yusron had the presence of mind to make. Abah wept. He pleaded. “Cover the shame of your teacher. Everyone makes mistakes, my child.” He offered scripts for retraction. He warned of media ruin. He called Zia, admitting the abuse on tape while begging for silence.
The institutional machinery moved with terrifying speed. Sukma was summoned to Abah’s house. Two police officers and an NWDI lawyer waited. She says she was forced to sign a retraction. A subsequent secret recording captured Abah’s wife, Hurmiati, enforcing the omertà: “Do you want this to haunt you for the rest of your life? Do you want it to damage the chances of you getting married?”
The pressure extended to Yusron’s parents, flown to Jakarta to retrieve him from university. He hid in a hotel. His mother, distraught, told him the stress was killing her. He relented. The investigation halted.
A New Ally, A New Victim
Eight months of silence. Then, a digital lifeline. Ayu Masruroh, a young activist who had secured a conviction against a teacher at another pesantren, began posting about the epidemic of abuse in Islamic boarding schools. Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence Against Women has labelled it a national emergency; legal experts say most cases evaporate before reaching court, smothered by pressure or settled privately.
Inspired, Zia posted an Instagram call-out. The response was immediate — and devastating. A current student at Abu Barokat alleged Abah had assaulted her after his promises to reform. The predator had not paused.
“It made me realise he hadn’t really changed at all,” Zia said. “All the things he said about stopping… it was all just lies.”
Yusron’s parents, witnessing their son’s anguish and Zia’s deteriorating state, finally relented. This time, the group sought professional counsel. Ayu introduced them to Joko Jumadi, a lawyer in West Nusa Tenggara specialising in sexual violence cases. He assessed the evidence and identified Sukma’s case as the strongest vehicle for prosecution.
The Long Wait for Justice
Sukma filed her police report in February last year. She waits still. Abah remains in post. The NWDI insists it is conducting an internal investigation and denies any cover-up, stating it has “a duty to safeguard the organisation from being tarnished by the alleged actions of individuals.” Abah and his wife did not respond to requests for comment.
Joko, who has handled twenty such cases in the province over three years, believes this is “just the tip of the iceberg.” He values the students’ recordings — capturing the pressure to recant in real time — as “exceptionally valuable.” “Several victims are mentioned — acknowledged by the individual himself,” he noted. “These are key pieces of evidence.”
Why it Matters
This case illuminates the terrifying efficacy of institutional power when wielded against children: a revered spiritual father, a wealthy foundation, and a complicit police force aligning to protect a predator while sacrificing his victims. Yet it also reveals the radical potential of survivor-led solidarity. Yusron and Zia transformed their trauma into forensic evidence, their obedience into defiance, and their isolation into a partnership that has outlasted the investigation. Their marriage is not merely a personal triumph; it is a quiet rebuke to a system that bets on silence winning. In a region where “honour” is too often weaponised to bury the truth, these former star pupils have written a different ending — one where the victims become the investigators, and the truth, however delayed, refuses to stay buried.