Local Muslim leader speaks out on doctor accused of FGM

The sickening practice of female genital mutilation is still largely kept secret, so much so, that the FBI still doesn't know how many young girls in our own community are victims.

Although Henry Ford Dr. Jumana Nagarwala denies being guilty of the gruesome act, she says whatever she did to these young victims in an afterhours Livonia clinic, was a religious practice, based in the Dawoodi Bohra sect of Islam.

“I was shocked really at the allegations, we'll see how it plays out in court. The doctor alleges that she did no cutting.”

Dawud Walid of the Council on American Islamic relations says Nagarwala's claims of only taking mucus from girls around 7 years old, is not a known practice of any sect of Islam.

“I've never heard of any wiping away of mucus and burying it as an Islamic religious practice. I've never heard of this before.”

Nagarwala's sect of Islam is practiced at the Masjid-ul-Burhani mosque located on Orchard Lake Road in Farmington Hills.

We're told the people who attend the mosque mostly keep to themselves and don't normally communicate or participate in discussions or events with the larger Muslim community in SE Michigan.

“They have their own programs and are really more so to themselves.”

The FBI says they have strong evidence and testimony prepared to prove that at least two 7 year old girls were badly mutilated by Nagarwala in February.

We've tried to reach the Imam to ask if this sort of practice is condoned, but did not get a response.

FGM is however condemned by the Islamic faith as a whole.

“The council on American Islamic relations reaffirmed our long standing position on February 6 at the United Nations international Day against female genital mutilation that the cutting as well as removing of the female genitalia or FGM is un-Islamic and goes against our religious norm.”