Posted on July 5, 2011

Writer Kia Abdullah Mocks Death of Gap Year Students on Twitter

Martin Evans, Telegraph (London), July 1, 2011

The 29-year-old British Bangladeshi indicated that she felt no sympathy for the three teenagers, who died in a bus crash in the early hours of Tuesday morning, because they were middle class.

Describing their travels as a “gap yaar”, Miss Abdullah even said she smiled when she heard the news because two of the young men killed had double barrelled names.

Her comments immediately sparked widespread revulsion on the social networking site, with hundreds of people describing her as “sick” and “disgusting”.

Bruno Melling-Firth, Conrad Quashie and Max Boomgaarden-Cook, died instantly when the coach they were travelling in to the north of Thailand was involved in a collision with another bus.

Mr Boomgaarden-Cook’s father, described his agony at the loss of his son, saying: “I did not know human bodies could produce so many tears. It is such intense pain that it will never go away.”

But just hours after the news of the tragedy was reported, Miss Abdullah, who recently published a controversial book about paedophilia, took to her Twitter page to mock their deaths.

She wrote: “Is it really awful that I don’t feel sympathy for anyone killed on a gap yaar? That’s awful, right? Yes, I’m a terrible person.”

Moments later she wrote: “I actually smiled when I saw that they had double-barrelled surnames. Sociopathic?”

She was forced to post an apology an hour later after other Twitter users flooded her page with comments condemning her.

One wrote: “You really are the sickest person I have come across in a long time, I hope you get no work for the rest of your miserable life.”

Another wrote: “You are not sorry; you were just caught out. If you were sorry you wouldn’t have Tweeted TWICE on the subject. You are vile.”

In a statement, Miss Abdullah said: “I’m very sorry about my thoughtless comments on Twitter this morning. I know how it feels to lose a loved one and can understand why people felt sickened by what I said. I apologise to everyone I offended, in particular the families involved.”

Miss Abdullah was born in Tower Hamlets in east London and was educated at Queen Mary University.

She has published two controversial novels, Life Love and Assimilation and Child’s Play, which drew condemnation from her native British Bangladeshi community.

She also contributes regularly to The Guardian.

A spokesman for the newspaper said: “Kia Abdullah is an occasional freelance contributor to the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

“She has never been on contract, is not on the staff of the Guardian and has not written for any part of the Guardian since May 2010. The Guardian is not responsible for what occasional contributors write on Twitter.”