KADUNA, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Police said on Saturday they had
freed nearly 150 students from a purported school in northern
Nigeria that claimed it was teaching the Koran but had instead
subjected them to abuse.
It was the fourth such operation in a month and brings the
total released from religious schools in northern Nigeria to
more than 1,000.
The raid will put more pressure on President Muhammadu
Buhari to take action on loosely regulated Islamic schools
called Almajiris, which experts say teach millions of children
across the mainly Muslim north of the country.
Kaduna state governor Nasir El Rufai ordered the raid on the
Islamic reform school in Rigasa, officials said. The captives
were gathered later at a camp nearby, standing in lines in
maroon uniforms as state officials tended to them.
Unlike the other schools, at least 22 of the 147 released
captives were female, Hafsat Baba, Kaduna's commissioner for
human services told Reuters.
The condition of those released was not immediately clear.
An official told Reuters the school was owned by the same
man who owned one of the schools raided in neighbouring Katsina
state earlier this week and had already been arrested by police.
Those freed from other schools over the past month -
including two this week - were chained to walls, beaten and
sexually molested. At the other raided facilities, some parents thought their
children would be educated and even paid tuition. Other families
sent misbehaving or difficult family members and wards to them
for discipline. Buhari, whose home state is Katsina, said in June that he
planned to ban Almajiris eventually but would not do so right
away.
Buhari's office, in a statement issued on Saturday, said "no
responsible democratic government would tolerate the existence
of the torture chambers and physical abuses of inmates in the
name of rehabilitation of the victims."