The police in Kaduna State have raided an ‘Islamic school’ building where over 300 young children were enchained and tortured by their supposed teachers.
The children under slave-style torture at the “school”, were said to have been maltreated for at least three months before the police came to their rescue.
The place, which doubles as a rehabilitation camp, was being operated by one Ismaila Abubakar and six others, according to the police.
Police spokesman, Yakubu Sabo said children as young as 10 years old and young men as old as 18 were found all chained at the building.
“It is true. Yesterday, the command acted on intelligence that there was a school where children over three hundred were caged in a place. It was more of a rehab than a school, but it was not registered. The commissioner of police led other senior officers to the place for on the spot assessment,” he said.
“When we got there, we found over 300 children, some of them young men, 18 years old. When we tried to find out exactly what was going on they said the children were undergoing Arabic studies and some of them socially maladjusted, that’s people who are maybe drug addicts are brought there for modification. This man has no specialised knowledge of behaviour modification. He is not a psychologist. Also, the school was not registered. And the parents even complained that when they bring their children, they will not have the children at will. When they come, the school authorities will tell them that they cannot see their children till after three months.
“So they were not in the picture of what was actually happening to the children. When we got there, you should have seen how happy the children were, because they had been in bondage. Some of them below the age of 10, subjected to this dehumanizing treatment. Some of them had scars, indicating that they had been wounded,” the police spokesman added.
