A shocking incident had come to light where a minor 10-year-old boy, was found chained to a metallic bench in an unregistered madarsa in Prabhat lane of Ashoka Garden in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal on Sunday morning. Another seven-year-old boy who also studied and lived at the same madarsa, was also found sleeping near the chained boy.
As per reports, local residents had spotted the minor sleeping with one of his legs tied to a metal bench with an iron chain at 10 am on Sunday morning inside the madarsa. A small lock was used to secure the chain. The locals subsequently alerted the police who reached the spot and freed the boy.
The police have now arrested Mufti Mohammad Sad (32) and Hafiz Salman (19) based on the statements of the victims. The victims alleged that the two men physically abused them. A case has been registered under Section 75 and 85 of the Juvenile Justice Act and Section 342 (Punishment for wrongful confinement) of the IPC.
A senior police official said that the minors, who were students at the madarsa, had tried to flee the institution in the past, following which the managers decided to chain them. The probe has revealed that the madarsa was not registered with the State Madarsa Board, but was being run under a registered educational society named Zakaria Education Society.
According to reports, the police also confirmed that the minors who were among the 22 boys who studied and lived at the madarsa have been sent to a shelter home on Monday on the recommendation of the Child Welfare Committee, Bhopal, and are currently undergoing counselling.
Accounts of such horrors have become quite common with madarsas. Yesterday we reported how a madarsa cleric from Kathumar village of Alwar district in Rajasthan had abducted a minor girl from the village and forcibly taken her to Hyderabad where he raped her multiple times in a guestroom of a mosque there.
Prior to this incident, we reported how a teacher in a madarsa in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar allegedly used the CCTV cameras in the madarsa to watch girl students as they changed clothes. These are, however, just a few out of the numerous cases of rampant child abuse going on inside madarsas.
