Over the years, Muchtar and his school – as well as the Shiddiqiyyah complex it sits in – have drawn public figures looking for support in what is a key political battleground.
In 2014, then-presidential candidate Joko Widodo visited during his political campaign. Five years later, his successor Prabowo Subianto did the same.
Indonesia’s national police chief visited the school and met Muchtar in August last year, saying he wanted to forge closer ties with Shiddiqiyyah.
It was the family’s connections and clout that Ira says persuaded her to withdraw her allegations against Bechi.
“I was terrified,” she told the BBC, adding that it escalated as his supporters began giving her death threats.
In June 2018, Ira and her father were summoned to a hotel near the school, she says, where she met Bechi’s mother, Nyai Shofwatul Ummah.
Ira secretly recorded their conversation and shared it with the BBC. In it Bechi’s mother says that her son had “made mistakes, perhaps in his relationship with Ira. So I apologise”.
She then urges Ira to withdraw her police report. “Nothing happened, it’s only family business,” she tells her.
Ira says that fearing for her safety, she signed a statement retracting her allegations, which she now regrets.
When the case went to trial, Ira says she was questioned for hours, where they “asked these really probing questions – very painful questions. I told the court everything”.
Now watching the footage of Bechi out of prison, she says, “it feels as if he has won and I’ve lost”.
“It’s very important the world knows. It’s true. He is free. It’s just a complete mockery of the law.”
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