LAHORE, April 30: A boy suffering from psychological trauma at Children's Hospital alleged on Friday that he had been tortured by his teacher at a seminary in Faisalabad.
"I was punished by the teacher who wanted to make an example of me because I dared escape the daily routine of beatings at the seminary," 11-year-old Atif Rehman told Dawn at the hospital.
The case came to light when a complaint was formally lodged with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) a couple of days ago, its official, Mehboob Ahmad Khan, said. "A doctor whose servant was a close relative of the boy wanted us to probe the matter." He said the HRCP was collecting facts of the incident.
Treatment notes read that the boy was received unconscious at the hospital with a head injury and bruises all over the body. He later complained of abdominal pain and respiratory distress.
"His mother has been asked to work on him to divert his attention from pain. He is still frightened," a clinical psychologist wrote in treatment notes, adding that anti-depressants had been prescribed for him until further investigation.
The boy would cry and shout with fear whenever he saw a bearded man, a doctor on duty said, insisting that he not be named. "It has happened twice during his stay at the hospital that he would start crying on seeing a bearded doctor. It is a phobia, which could last for the rest of his life."
Atif said it was his own decision to get admission to a madressah, and a friend helped him get enrolled in the seminary of Makkah Masjid, Street 7, Mansoorabad, Faisalabad.
"We did not object to his decision, knowing that his learning the Quran by heart would help us enter paradise," said his father, Muhammad Aashiq of the Nankana Sahib. A father of three sons and as many daughters, Mr Ashiq added that he had been jobless since an accident around two years ago. He was a driver by profession, he added.
Atif said he started studying at the seminary four months ago and soon came to know that the teacher subjected students to physical torture. The teacher would hang the students with chains and treat them like animals, he said. For some time, he put up with the beatings, but ran away from the madressah on April 13.
"I had been roaming around in Faisalabad for two days when a man helped me board a bus for my native village." He said he reached home on April 18, but the very next day a boy from the seminary approached his parents and he was again taken to Faisalabad.
The boy said that at the seminary he was detained in a room and his hands and legs were chained. He alleged that the teacher, Maulvi Mahboob Aalam, beat him up with chains and iron rods and tied him with electric wire. He claimed that the teacher gave him poison, mixing it with milk.
His father said the teacher approached him and asked him to take his son back home, claiming that the boy was having fits. He added that together with a friend he reached Faisalabad and found that his son was locked in a room, he was not in his senses and was bleeding from mouth and nose.
"We took him to the Nankana Sahib as we did not have money for his treatment, but we had to admit him to a hospital the next day when doctors told us that he had little chance to survive. Then we brought him to Lahore."
The HRCP official said that Punjab Chief Minister's Adviser on Rights of Children Dr Faiza Asghar had taken up the case. "We are planning to take legal action in this regard."