Authorities hiding facts on Thaqif’s death’

A group representing tahfiz schools seeks public disclosure of all evidence related to the case.

KUALA LUMPUR: A group representing tahfiz schools in Malaysia has accused health authorities of concealing evidence they have allegedly found in investigations into the death of Mohd Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi.

Mohd Zahid Mahmood, the president of the National Federation of Associations for Tahfiz al-Quran Institutions, said neither his group nor the tahfiz school that Thaqif attended had been told what caused the boy’s death.

He recalled a police statement to the effect that a medical report would be completed within two weeks of Thaqif’s death. The 11-year-old died on April 27 at Hospital Sultan Ismail in Johor Baru.

Zahid also noted that the assistant warden at Thaqif’s school, the suspect in the case who was held on remand, had been released on a court bond.

“But the federation remains in the dark,” he told FMT. “We have not been provided any report by the health authorities on what actually happened.”

Thaqif, who attended the Madrasah Tahfiz Al-Jauhar in Kota Tinggi, died while doctors were preparing to amputate his right forearm to prevent infection from spreading to the rest of his body. His legs had already been amputated.

Allegations surfaced that the boy was injured after being beaten with a rubber hose. The assistant warden of the school was arrested on April 23 and released on May 3 on a RM20,000 bond.

Zahid said the public had the right to know the result of investigations and urged the government to make the medical report public.

“We should clear the name of the Kota Tinggi tahfiz school and the assistant warden as well as the reputation of all tahfiz schools in the country,” he said.

“It is important to stop pointing fingers and prevent people from jumping to all sorts of conclusions.”

He said some people had already taken advantage of the Thaqif case to paint tahfiz schools as a den for breeding terrorists.

Tahfiz schools specialise in Quranic studies and produce students who have memorised the text of the holy book in its entirety.

Referring to allegations that Thaqif was beaten with a metal pipe, Zahid said: “These reports are all baseless. A rattan cane was actually used to scare the students so they would study harder.

“At the school concerned, there were 22 CCTV cameras. The police have viewed all the video recordings from the school and there was no evidence on which to charge the assistant warden.

“The CCTV recordings only showed the assistant warden lightly caning the soles of the students without injuring them.

“The misperception about tahfiz schools must be corrected.”

Zahid also said he was pleased that tahfiz schools had become better known and were spreading “like mushrooms” after the Thaqif case.

“Whatever some people might say, society knows better about tahfiz schools,” he added. -FMT