Four Wakefield pupils suspended after Quran damaged at school

Mr Akbar said he had been told the book had been taken to school as a dare by a pupil who lost while playing a Call of Duty videogame with other students.

While at the school it sustained a slight tear to the cover and smears of dirt on some of the pages. Mr Akbar said he understood it had been kicked around on the school premises – a claim denied by the school.

Head teacher Mr Griffiths said in a statement: “We would like to reassure all our community that the holy book remains fully intact and that our initial enquiries indicate there was no malicious intent by those involved. “However, we have made it very clear that their actions did not treat the Quran with the respect it should have, so those involved have been suspended and we will be working with them to ensure they understand why their actions were unacceptable.”

A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police said they were “liaising” with the school.

However that same day another local councillor Usman Ali was raging on Twitter  in a tweet he later deleted. 

“…todays events at Kettlethorpe High School where a Koran has been desecrated are a serious provocative action which needs to be dealt with by all the authorities, namely, the police, the school and the local authority.
This terrible action could destroy all the good progress that has been made in Wakefield to highlight and tackle Islamophobia . . . swift and appropriate action . . . this provocation does not set back community relations for years to come” Is that a threat? 

Two days later the death threats and taunts to one of the boys involved, who is autistic, and suffers from anxiety (and one of the challenges of autism is learning those signals that indicate socially acceptable behaviour in a social setting) are such that his mother felt the need to don a hijab and appear before the local mosque, the Jamia Masjid Swafia, with a self-abasing apology for the sake of her son’s safety and well being. Which 5Pillars had filmed and uploaded to twitter. 

I found it excruciating to watch. Shades of Soviet confessions during the show trial. But if my child was threatened, anxious and afraid of returning to school would I have done differently?  We don’t know how the other pupils are faring. 

5 Pillars and the mosque concerned have received criticism from other Muslims.