Jakarta, IO – The East Java Office of the Religious Affairs Ministry (Kemenag) said that 1,200 of the 8,000 Islamic boarding schools in the region do not have operational permits.
The office’s head in charge of early education and Islamic boarding schools, Mohamad As’adul Anam, said the figure was based on records from East Java Nahdlatul Ulama (PWNU) Rabithah Ma’had Islamiyah (RMI), per CNN Indonesia, Fri (1/3).
The matter came under scrutiny after a student was tortured to death by a fellow student at the Al Hanifiyyah Islamic boarding school, Kediri. Anam confirmed that the Islamic boarding school managed by Fatihunada does not have an operational permit and has only been operating since 2014.
“This Islamic boarding school is relatively new. It is adjacent to the long-established Islamic boarding school, Al-Islahiyyah. So it has yet to apply for an operational permit,” he explained.
The death of a student named Bintang Balqis Maulana (14) was first uncovered after the student’s family became suspicious of the boarding school that delivered his body, claiming that he died after slipping and falling in the bathroom.
Read: Jokowi To Start Working From IKN In July
However, the family became suspicious after seeing blood flowing from the coffin. When the shroud was opened, wounds and bruises were visible all over his body.
After conducting an investigation, Kediri City Police named four suspects who were all students at the PPTQ Al Hanifiyyah Islamic boarding school. They are MN (18) from Sidoarjo, MA (18) from Nganjuk, AK (17) from Surabaya City and AF (16), the victim’s cousin from Denpasar, Bali. (un)