SAHIWAL: A prayer leader in Farid Town has been booked for allegedly torturing two of his students after they failed to memorise their Quranic lesson.

The case was registered on the complaint of Robina Bibi, the mother of victims Ali Raza (12) and Ali Abbas (10) who were real brothers, while their father, Muhammad Sabir, was an expatriate residing abroad and a native of village 93/6-R.

The complaint said that the children were enrolled at the Jamia Masjid Abu Sufyan, located in the W -Block of Farid Town. She said that the victims mostly stayed at the mosque and visited home only once every two to three days. This week, she claimed, when the boys did not return home, she grew concerned and visited the seminary. There, she claimed to find the children with severe stick injuries on their backs. She claimed that the children informed her that Qari Muhammad Talha had beaten them two days earlier for failing to remember their lesson. She claimed that due to the severity of their injuries, the prayer leader allegedly prevented them from going home.

Their mother immediately called Rescue 1122 and the boys were shifted to the Teaching Hospital, where medical examination confirmed the torture.

The Farid Town Police registered a case on the complaint of their mother. However, the accused prayer leader was yet to be arrested.

ACQUITTED: Judicial Magistrate Khawaja Mahdi Hasan acquitted all 234 youths arrested by traffic wardens over the past two days in different parts of the city.

Around 190 of those acquitted were students of schools and colleges.

Reports suggest that after the chief minister reprimanded the traffic police over poor performance of wardens across Punjab, the Sahiwal traffic police issued 274 challans and arrested 234 individuals within 48 hours - averaging 22.5 challans per hour.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2025