“DEAR Allah, please open my parents’ hearts to allow me to transfer to another school because I cannot stand it anymore. Please, Allah, make my wishes come true.” Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi wrote in his diary recently from a tahfiz school in Johor.

But the 11-year-old schoolboy died today, days after both his legs were amputated and hours after doctors decided not to amputate one arm because of an unstable heart. 

Thaqif was abused and tortured by an assistant warden, his legs whipped with a water hose until black and blue, and the infection later spread to the kidneys and a shoulder. The warden has since been remanded by police. 

His mother Felda Wani Ahmad had enrolled him at the privately run religious boarding school in Kota Tinggi last January 27.

“He was overjoyed at first, but later he was not himself and even pleaded with me to stop sending him there as he was afraid of getting whipped by the warden,” the 40-year-old mother was quoted as saying by a local daily.

She took him out of the school on March 31 and for two weeks, got him treated by a faith healer. When that did not work, she sent him to the government hospital but it was too late.

The boy had complained to Felda about being beaten in school, his aunt Nurul Nabila Ahmad told The Malaysian Insight yesterday.

“Thaqif told us his friends also received the same treatment but maybe not as bad as him. Thaqif said the (assistant) warden always beat him even though it wasn’t his fault,” she added.

And now Thaqif is dead. An unwelcome statistic for Malaysia, a country on the cusp of being high-income and developed and which prides itself as a modern Muslim nation.

Corporal punishment? Until a schoolboy turns black and blue? Definitely not in a nation that has punched above its weight class and is seen as a model for other Muslim nations.

The thing is, there has been recent proliferation of private educational institutions, including tahfiz schools, across the country. Who regulates them? Who licenses the teachers? And the wardens who run some of which are boarding schools?

Is it the federal government and departments or is it under the state government because it is an Islamic institution? This is beyond religion, really. This is about education, life and death.

How many more cases of abuse, torture and God forbid, death, have to occur before the relevant authorities take notice? Whoever responsible for Thaqif’s abuse, torture and suffering will face the full brunt of the law but what about regulating these schools in the first place?

Parents send their children to school, expecting them to be educated and turn out to be good citizens and a credit to the nation, not end up in a hospital or a grave before they finish their schooling. Yes, there must be discipline but not to the extent the child lands in a hospital bed.

Malaysia cannot let Thaqif’s death be just a statistic. At the very least, his death should lead to better regulations, supervision and professionalism in education – be it public or private.

Today, his family buries a child, a son who died before his prime. But Malaysia must not bury the issue of bad teachers and wardens who care for our young. – April 26, 2017.