Boy dies of alleged torture by Quran teacher in Pakistan

The death of a 12-year-old student reported to have been tortured to death by his Quran teacher in Lahore has prompted the Punjab chief minister to call for an inquiry into the incident. Mohammad Jamil was a madrassa student where he was studying the Quran from Qari Muhammad Jameel and a teacher whose name remains unknown. The young boy is said to have been tortured by his teachers so severely that he was taken to four different hospitals by his parents for treatment for stomach pain but eventually died according to a report in the Express Tribune on Sunday. The boy’s father registered a case with the police which raided the madrassa looking for the teachers, both of whom are said to have escaped. He blames the teachers for the torture and the doctors for negligence in his son’s treatment. Reports of abuse in Pakistan’s madrassas (religious schools) are not uncommon. Last year police raided a madrassa in Karachi and found a dozen boys chained in the basement, deprived of food and forced to join the Taliban reported the Los Angeles Times in December. Earlier this month, three students of a madrassa in Kabirwala, all under the age of five, were abused by their teacher for plucking flowers at the school gardens reported the Express Tribune. The children had heavy bricks placed on them and were found by their parents bleeding. The police registered a case under the teacher. The parent of one of the students was quoted by the newspaper as saying “such a brutal person does not deserve to teach the Holy Quran.”