THE death of Albar Mahdi, a student at the Darussalam Gontor Islamic Boarding School in Ponorogo, East Java, shows the poor supervision of boarding schools in Indonesia. After studying for years at the largest Islamic boarding school (pesantren) in Indonesia, the 17-year-old returned to his home in Palembang, South Sumatra in a coffin.

Albar died after being beaten by two of his classmates, MFA and IH, on the morning of August 22. Together with