Police evacuation of 300 people including children from an ‘Islamic Centre’ in Kaduna on Thursday took a bizarre turn on Friday with some parents of the affected children protesting the police action.
The police had taken into their protective custody all the freed people, some of whom were in chains at the centre.
The police also arrested the founder of the centre and his teachers.
Angry Nigerians deplored the conditions under which the people were treated at the ‘school’.
However, the police action has not gone down well with some parents of the children who stormed the centre on Friday, openly condemning the police
They stormed the centre, which is still being guarded by policemen, and demanded to be reunited with their children.
The police had accused the school authority of abusing the children and keeping them in dehumanizing conditions; an allegation the school authority denied.
Some residents of the area, however, told The Nation that some of the rescued students were drug addicts and stubborn children taken to the centre by their parents for rehabilitation and also to acquire Quranic knowledge.
A neighbour to the school, Ahmed Balarabe, also denied allegations of sexual abuse on the children.
One of the protesting women, Maryam Fatika, whose four children attended the school and are now with the police, said: “There was nothing going wrong in the school, because we took our children there ourselves. So we don’t know why the police raided the place.
Another parent, whose son Jibril has been in the school for six years, said: “The boy became a threat to us his parents, so we took him to the Islamiyya School for rehabilitation, and to God be the glory, he has changed.
In her own views, Shafa’atu Zakari, who has six children in the school, said, her children were drug addicts and could not control their behaviour, which was why she took them to the school to acquire Quranic knowledge.
One of the directors in the school, Mallam Mohammed Auwal El’Zubair, also denied the allegations made by the police, saying that all the children at the centre were admitted with the consent of their parents. (Thenationng)
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In Kaduna