An imam and three elderly people were arrested in a village in Bangladesh after ordering them to beat and stone a woman for allegedly cheating on her husband, police said Monday.

Last week, Hamida Sultana was hit with 82 sticks and pelted with 80 stones under a fatwa issued by the imam of the village of Habigang (northeast) to punish her, according to the police.

Sultana, 30, told AFP that she was "a victim of terrible injustice... I can't describe what they did to me."

This fatwa sparked controversy and was rejected by feminists and human rights activists , who organized demonstrations and demanded that the perpetrators be prosecuted.

"They acted like people from the Middle Ages," Fawzia Muslim, head of Bangladesh's most prominent women's rights organization, told AFP.

"It is barbaric. The Bangladeshi justice system allows for arbitrary local councils but they are not allowed to punish anyone for any wrongdoing," she added.

Bangladesh, a country in South Asia with a population of 170 million, has a Muslim majority but its judicial system is secular and the application of Islamic law in criminal cases is illegal.

According to police officer Zakir Hussain, four people, including the imam of the local mosque, were arrested immediately after Sultana filed a criminal complaint against 17 people following the assault.

"The village council ordered beatings and stoning in the name of Islamic law because Sultana was accused of cheating on her husband. Relationships outside marriage are strictly prohibited in Islam," he told AFP.
He pointed out that the elderly in the village "said that attacking her would exonerate her of her guilt and cleanse her honor."
The victim's husband, Anwar Mia, who works in the Sultanate of Oman and returned to Bangladesh to be with his wife, is calling for "justice for his wife".

Decades ago, village councils in Bangladesh implemented Islamic law and punished Muslim women accused of adultery or having sexual relations outside marriage.

In a 2011 ruling, the Bangladesh Supreme Court allowed fatwas to be issued but prohibited their enforcement.