The police have arrested one Nurudeen Sadallah, an Islamic cleric in Oke Aro, Ogun State, for allegedly defiling a seven-year-old pupil he teaches Quran.
The girl had reportedly gone to a corner around the class last Saturday to urinate when 40-year-old Sadallah surfaced, covered her mouth and dipped his finger into her private parts.
By the time she got home in the afternoon, her underwear was said to have been covered in blood. She was eventually taken to a hospital the following day when the bleeding didn’t stop.
The girl’s father, who gave his name simply as Ibrahim, told Daily Trust that his daughter mentioned Sadallah while she was being treated at the hospital.
He said: “Her mum noticed she was bleeding from her private part since she came back from the Arabic class that Saturday. When I came back from work around 9pm that day, she told me to check our daughter’s private part. I saw blood there. I was shocked and wondered what could have caused it. My wife said the first pant she (the victim) wore was covered with blood and she had to change it.
“She wore a third pant before she slept but by the time she woke up, it was soaked again with blood. We took her to a hospital. As a doctor was treating her, she was screaming and saying ‘it is Alfa that did this o.’ My wife called the Alfa on the phone and was complaining bitterly.
“I then asked my daughter what happened. She said she went to a corner to urinate and while she was there, Alfa appeared; covered her mouth and dipped his finger into her private parts. The doctor confirmed that she had been defiled. She is seven years old and very smart. She couldn’t have lied against him if he didn’t do anything to her.”
But the suspect, who was apprehended by the police at the Agbado division, denied committing the crime, saying that he always looks after the pupils under his watch.
He said, “After I finished teaching them Quran, I told them to go perform ablution and prepare for Suhr prayer. I didn’t do anything to her. I have been teaching children Quran in that area for 12 years and I have never done anything like that.”
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Abimbola Oyeyemi, who confirmed Sadallah’s arrest to our correspondent, said the state Commissioner of Police, Lanre Bankole, had directed that the suspect be transferred to the command’s headquarters in Eleweran, Abeokuta, for further investigation and prosecution.
