Hong Kong court jails Koran teacher for 15 weeks over assaulting boy at learning centre
- Shahzad Khan, 35, sentenced over attack on pupil at Madrassa Taleemul Furqan Islamic Union that left boy needing surgery for detached retina
A volunteer teacher of the Koran has been jailed for more than three months over the “serious” assault of a 13-year-old boy at a Hong Kong Islamic learning centre last year, which left the pupil with a detached retina.
Shahzad Khan, 35, returned to Eastern Court on Tuesday for sentencing after pleading guilty to using physical punishment on the boy for failing to recite a verse of the Koran in class.
Magistrate Minnie Wat Lai-man said the boy suffered a “rather long-term injury” to his damaged eye, and noted the youth still had to undergo surgical treatment a year after the attack despite his condition later stabilising.
“Even if your motive was to help the boy learn the Koran, and you might have committed the offence on the spur of the moment, slapping the victim in the face near the eye, which is a vulnerable part of the human body, is plainly wrong,” she said.
Wat cited a letter written by the boy’s father, who said the family had forgiven the accused but declined the latter’s offer of HK$20,000 (US$2,600) in compensation.
“No amount of compensation can ever repair the severe damage done to my son and to his future daily life,” the father wrote.
The father said he strongly believed nobody could override the law in the name of religion, as he urged the court to send a strong message to society against condoning violence targeting children.