BEATINGS, even for trivial mistakes, are the norm in Pakistani madrasah (seminaries) and the culture has been brought to local private religious schools, said independent preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin.

Wan Ji, a product of a Pakistani madrasah, said corporal punishment at certain local private madrasah is used by teachers who graduated from Pakistani religious schools.

He was a pupil at a Kelantanese madrasah at 13 and went to Pakistan to further his studies.

The 32-year-old preacher said none of his teachers raised a hand against him or other pupils during his time at the madrasah in Pasir Mas, Kelantan.

Things, however, changed when he attended a Pakistani madrasah in Karachi called the Jamiah Farooqiah at 16.

“I was hit on the hand when I failed to memorise a chapter from the Quran. The teacher hit me with a stick until I had marks on my hand,” Wan Ji told The Malaysian Insight.

Disciplinary problems, such as cutting class, were met with harsher punishments, he said, adding that not all private madrasah here practised corporal punishment.

Only those founded and staffed by those who studied in Pakistan adopt the culture.

“Because the madrasah system is not streamlined, their teaching methods depend on the founder and the teachers. This is different from government-run religious schools.”

Wan Ji’s comments came as police classified the death of Kota Tinggi madrasah pupil Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gadaffie as murder.

It was reported that the 11-year-old had been beaten on the soles with a rubber hose. Thaqif had been earlier hospitalised and both legs were amputated because of an infection.

Social activist Syed Azmi Alhabsi said Thaqif’s death showed that there was a need to monitor private religious schools.

“Beatings and abuse do not just happen in madrasah, they happen in conventional schools as well. But what we want to know is how are these private religious schools regulated, how are their teachers chosen, what is their syllabus like.”

Syed Azmi had once made allegations of sexual abuse among teachers at a Perak religious school, leading the school’s administrator to call for a police probe into such claims. – April 27, 2017.