KUALA LUMPUR, April 25 ― The private Islamic school in Johor, where a warden allegedly abused a boy to the point the latter needed both legs amputated, did not need to screen its employees, police have confirmed.
Kota Tinggi district police chief Superintendent Rahmat Othman said this was because the private school was outside the purview of the Education Ministry, local daily New Straits Times (NST) reported today.
News reports over the past two days revealed that the 29-year-old assistant warden who alleged assaulted the boy had previously been jailed 30 months for theft.
The assistant warden is under police remand until tomorrow.
Rahman said police have gone through close-circuit television footage of the incident and recorded statements from the school's parents, adding that investigations will conclude after police obtain reports from doctors and nurses from past clinic visits and from the hospital where the 11-year-old boy is being treated.
In another report, the NST quoted a 12-year-old student at the private religious school as saying the hostel staff regularly hit them with a rubber hose as punishment, the same alleged disciplinary action taken by the detained warden.
“We would be whipped in a group. But, I do not find anything wrong with it,” the boy was quoted saying, reportedly believing that the whipping would not cause severe injuries.
“If one pupil makes an error, the rest of us also get the same punishment,” he said.
Dzuraidah Ahmad, an aunt of the 11-year-old boy whose legs had to be amputated, said the child previously said that he and his friends would sometimes “volunteer to get beaten first” so they would be able to sleep earlier and wake up for the 3am Muslim prayers.
“My nephew wrote he was punched for no reason and could no longer stand the abuse, and wanted to transfer to a different school,” she was quoted saying by local daily The Star, referring to the boy's diary in which he catalogued the abuse inflicted.
According to The Star, the boy alleged in his diary that he was punched after the assistant warden asked him to wash cups, and pleaded with God in the diary for his parents to transfer him elsewhere as he could no longer stand the beatings.
NST also reported another of the boy's aunt, Nurul Nabillah Ahmad, as saying that the child “may lose his arm” if a blood clot in his left shoulder is still present by 6am this morning.
