Brutal beating: Police to seek seminary teacher’s remand today

Doctors say recovery from wounds in back, legs will take a month.

MULTAN:

A seminary teacher arrested by Bara Meel police for brutally beating three students will be presented before a court in Kabirwala on Wednesday (today).

The suspect, Muhammad Asghar, was arrested on Monday, a day after the matter was reported to the police. SHO Gul Muhammad told The Express Tribune that an FIR had been registered against him under Sections 337 L2 and 357 L2 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The report of the medical examination of the children – Aasia, 4; Junaid, 4; and Aqsa, 5 – issued on Tuesday stated that the wounds on their backs and legs needed at least a month to heal. Dr Saima, who carried out the medical examination, told The Express Tribune that they would likely be discharged from hospital on Wednesday (today).

The children were taken to Kabirwala tehsil headquarters (THQ) hospital by their parents who rescued them from the seminary on Sunday night. Mukhtar Ahmed, father of Aasia, and Muhammad Hussain, father of Junaid and Aqsa, told The Tribune that they had rushed to the scene after they were informed about the incident by an annonymous caller. On reaching the seminary, they said, they had found the children lying unconscious, with bleeding wounds to their backs. The suspect had fled by the time they reached the seminary, they added.

“I wonder how he (Asghar) teaches Holy Quran to children. He clearly has not learnt anything from the book himself,” Hussain said. Talking to The Tribune at the hospital, the children said they were beaten up as a punishment for plucking flowers from the seminary lawn. They said they had wanted to present the flowers to a teacher at a school they attended in the morning.

The children said they were first beaten up by a stick and then made to lie down on the concrete floor. The suspect put bricks on their chests and made them stay in that position for over half an hour, they added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2012.