S’porean Brothers Arrested in Melaka For Abusing 13-15YO Students at Religious School

More light is being shed on sexual abuse cases today, which are shocking to hear each time.

In a recent story involving sexual crimes in Malaysia, the perpetrators happened to be Singaporean.

Two Singaporean brothers are complicit in these crimes, which involved several teenage students of a tahfiz school, an Islamic religious school dedicated to memorising the Quran.

While baffling, cases like these occurring at tahfiz schools are unfortunately not unheard of.

The Case, in Detail

Six police reports had been filed against the two men between 6:03 pm and 9:13 pm on Thursday (11 May).

The two men who committed these sexual crimes were aged 36 and 40. The victims were aged 13 to 15.

The elder brother was the principal of two tahfiz schools in Alor Gajah and Tanjung Minyak in Melaka, while the younger brother was the warden, according to Melaka police chief Deputy Comm Datuk Zainul Samah.

On Friday (12 May), he disclosed that the elder brother had committed “despicable” sexual acts towards three teenage boys who were students of the tahfiz school he ran in Tanjung Minyak. The younger brother had physically abused three other boys.

The victims stated that the younger brother slapped, whipped and assaulted them when they failed to finish cleaning the school on time.

They were also taken to a condominium by the elder brother, where they were coerced into performing sexual acts on him.

The elder brother had a previous criminal record of two sexual offences, physical sexual abuse and sodomy, in 2019.

They were detained at the school and are now being investigated by police under Section 14(1) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 and Section 31(1)(a) of the Child Act 2001 of Malaysia.

The school is currently still in operation.

Similar Cases

In 2019, the Magistrate’s Court of Ipoh dismissed a case of sexual abuse at a tahfiz school despite acknowledging the crime two months before.

The case involved a 13-year-old boy who was a student at Maahad Tahfiz al Barakah, where he was abused along with other students by seniors over five months.

The court closed the case with no suspects identified, although the boy could name the suspects.

The boy’s mother had filed two police reports in August 2016, when the boy was still nine years old, about the sexual abuse that he and fellow students were facing.

However, his mother was told twice that no further action would be taken with this case as there was no solid evidence and eyewitnesses.

The boy had to undergo psychiatric therapy at a hospital to treat the trauma from the abuse he faced at the school.

‘Horror’ Tahfiz School

In another story surrounding a tahfiz school, eight male students were rescued by police from an unlicensed school run by a couple who committed physical abuse towards these students.

One of the students claimed that he was punched in the head, caned by the man, and slapped by his wife across his face. With bruises visible on his body, his father eventually filed a police report.

The couple, who ran the school in Ampang since October 2020, were arrested in 2021 and investigated under the Child Act 2001 for their treatment of the boys aged seven to 15.