By Abdullahi Inuwa
KATSINA, Nigeria, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Police freed about 500
men and boys from an Islamic school in northern Nigeria on
Wednesday, many of whom had been chained to walls, molested and
beaten, police sources said.
The raid in Katsina was the third such operation in less
than a month, bringing the total of people freed from abusive
conditions this month alone to about 1,000.
President Muhammadu Buhari's government is under pressure to
take urgent action to free the potentially thousands of other
children who remain in similar schools across Nigeria.
Another purported Islamic school, where captives were
chained to walls, some beaten so badly they needed help walking,
was raided in September in neighbording Kaduna state.
Two sources at the scene told Reuters that the owner of the
Mal. Niga school in Katsina metropolis and five of his staff had
been arrested. Police declined to comment on the raid and
blocked entrance to the grounds.
The operation, mounted by Katsina police and federal police
from Abuja, freed about 500 students though not all of them had
been mistreated, a police source said.
One building, which was well-kept, with clean tiles on the
exterior and working plumbing, held 300 pupils who were not
regularly mistreated. But about 200 captives at a site next door
were regularly abused.
"The second camp is the dangerous place," a police source
said. "The children were molested there."
The source said the most unruly students and some newcomers
were placed in the second building. Students at the first school
were sometimes taken to the second building for abuse.
Islamic schools, called Almajiris, are common in the mostly
Muslim north of Nigeria. Muslim Rights Concern, a local
organisation, estimates about 10 million children attend them.
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.
On Tuesday, an aide said Buhari had directed police: "Go out
in search of these kind of centres wherever they are and disband
them."
The centres referred to the places where people are
maltreated in the name of religion, the aide said. The statement
did not address Almajiris at large.