A cleric who allegedly beat a seminary pupil to death on January 21 in Karachi's Bin Qasim Town area was handed over to police on a three-day physical remand by a district and sessions court on Tuesday.

Qari Najmuddin is accused of beating eight-year-old Mohammed Hussain to death. The child's parents had pardoned the cleric and refused to allow a post-mortem examination to be conducted on his body.

Subsequently, police registered a case against the cleric on behalf of the state under Section 322 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Corporal punishment is prohibited in Sindh under a law passed by the provincial assembly in February 2017.

The said law gives children protection against punishments to cause pain or discomfort by hitting, smacking, slapping, spanking, kicking, shaking or throwing a child; scratching, pinching, biting, pulling hair or boxing their ears; or forcing child to stay in uncomfortable positions, burning, scalding or forced ingestion by any person in the family, workplace, in schools, other educational institutions, etc.

Opinion

Editorial

Equal citizens
11 Aug, 2026

Equal citizens

AUG 11 occupies a special place in our history because it was on this day in 1947 that Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali...
Tel Aviv’s subterfuge
11 Aug, 2026

Tel Aviv’s subterfuge

THE Gaza peace plan championed by US President Donald Trump and his Board of Peace has encountered major turbulence,...
Abandoned after floods
11 Aug, 2026

Abandoned after floods

THREE years after the 2022 floods submerged a third of Pakistan, more than 134,000 verified affected families in...
Genuine governance
Updated 10 Aug, 2026

Genuine governance

ON the surface, the Punjab cabinet’s decision to allocate funds for local government elections is a welcome step...
Failed by the state
10 Aug, 2026

Failed by the state

THE 1,914 cases of child abuse across Pakistan in the first six months of 2026 should spark outrage. The figure ...
HIV crisis
10 Aug, 2026

HIV crisis

PAKISTAN’s presence among countries with the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in Asia is a matter of shame. Globally,...