MALACCA: The parents of an 11-year old primary school pupil are calling for the Education Department to remove a religious teacher from a school in Tambak Paya, near here, for allegedly abusing their son.
The father of the child, Mohd Nizam Othman, 32, said a police report was lodged against the teacher, a 31-year old woman, on Oct 5 after he found more than 20 bruises on his son as a result of hard pinching.
A medical report attached with the police report lodged at the Melaka Tengah police station on Oct 5 confirmed the injuries sustained.
"It was repeated abuse. At first when my son complained of pain. My wife checked and found just a few marks, thus we did not think anything was amiss.
“We told him to listen to his teacher and work harder,” said Mohd Nizam.
However, on Oct 4, the parents noticed that their son was in intense pain and could not even lie down on his bed.
“When my wife checked his body, she found multiple bruises and marks on his left arm and back."
Mohd Nizam said, after questioning his son, he found that the boy had been continuously abused in that manner but had kept quiet about it, thinking his parents would support the teacher.
"He thought that because we had not taken his first complaint seriously, that we would not care about what had happened. So, when he was being regularly pinched and hurt, he just kept quiet about it," said Mohd Nizam.
"But on Oct 4, he had been more severely abused just for failing to memorise several Arabic phrases."
Mohd Nizam said he then went to the school to lodge a complaint. The headmaster told him that the teacher would no longer be allowed to teach his son.
"But later, we found out from my son that this was not the case. He was forced to sit through classes with the same teacher. In fact, the teacher had told my son she wasn't afraid of him informing his parents," said Mohd Nizam.
"That was when we decided we needed to lodge a police report. When we did, then the school started taking us seriously. The teacher's husband had even contacted us, asking us to withdraw our police report and offered compensation.”
Mohd Nizam said they at first decided to accept the offer of RM5,000.
“We then found out that other children were being abused. So we decided not to accept the compensation as we cannot allow this behaviour to continue,” he claimed.
“This teacher should not be allowed to teach.”
Mohd Nizam wants the Education Department to take stern action against the teacher to prevent any other children from being harmed.