Bangladesh madrassa teacher 'burns' legs of girl pupils for not offering regular prayers during vacation

(BBC) Police in Bangladesh are looking for a teacher from a Muslim religious school who allegedly placed burning hot iron rods on the legs of her students for failing to offer prayers regularly.

They say 14 girls, aged between eight and 12, received burn injuries.

The school has been temporarily closed following the incident, while the "hellish experience" of the girls has been widely reported in newspapers.

Their injuries are not thought to be serious.

The Bangladeshi government banned all corporal punishment in all educational institutions, including religious schools - or madrassas - in 2010.

"I was shocked to see the burn injury of my daughter," Jumur Akhter, mother of one of the affected students, told the BBC.

The girls were learning Arabic and Bengali at the Talimul Koran Mahila madrassa at Namashyampur in Dhaka. The incident is said to have happened on Tuesday.

"It was the first day of the madrassa after our holidays. Our teacher got angry when she heard that we were not offering regular prayers during our vacation," said Ferdousi Akther, aged eight.

"Then she asked her servant to heat up the rod and then she pressed it on our legs. The pain was unbearable."

Pupils say that the teacher asked the students whether they knew the severity of the fire in hell.

They were allegedly told that if they did not offer prayers regularly, they would experience a similar punishment.

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