London: A Muslim woman in London is facing jail on charges of beating a 10-yr-old girl because she did not read enough verses of the Quran.
During her trial in a Snaresbrook Crown Court, it emerged that Asia Parveen, 31, who was five months pregnant at the time of the incident, beat a 10-year-old girl with a steel ladle and also forced the girl to stand with her arms outstretched for four hours, and now faces a possible jail sentence.
The girl, whose identity has been keep under wraps for legal reasons, escaped from the house in Stoke Newington, north London at 10pm. Almost four hours later, the police found her alone at a bus stop in Waltham Forest, east London, in the early hours of the morning.
She was then taken to the hospital where the doctors found 56 injuries on her body.
Parveen, who is a mother-of-three, accepted causing some of the injuries with the ten inch cooking spoon but said others must have been caused when the girl ''fell over.''
Prosecutor of the case Tom Nicholson told the court that an argument started between Parveen and the girl on August 15 last year during Ramadan.
“The girl was praying from the Koran and Parveen accused her of lying about how many of the verses she had read. She was 10 at the time. Parveen took a metal spoon about 10 inches in size and the Crown's case is that she hit the child with it repeatedly over a half an hour period, causing extensive bruising over both arms, her legs and head,” The Daily Mail quoted Nicholson, as saying.
He outlined that Parveen had reportedly claimed to kill the girl and ran to get a knife from the kitchen.
“So, the girl had no alternative but to home leave at around 10pm,” he added.
Admitting to the single count of child cruelty, she however insisted that she only used the spoon once or twice on the girl's arms and bottom and also denied threatening to kill the 10-year-old or picking up a knife.
The case has been adjourned till the next hearing on June 15.
ANI
First Published: Saturday, May 05, 2012, 19:39