The parents of six novice Buddhist monks in Siem Reap’s Kambor Or village have filed a complaint to their village chief against an allegedly aggressive nun in the local pagoda, who they claim beat their children last week with a creative variety of weapons.

Muy Mean, Kvav commune’s Kambor Or village chief, said he had given a stern warning to the nun, Nub Chanthorn, 65, who is the pagoda chief’s mother.

“This was not the first time that this nun did that,” he said. “She is so strange. She beat the young monks even though they did nothing wrong. She used sticks, rubber bands and electric wire to beat them.

“She promised me a few months ago that she would not beat them. I will ask her to leave the pagoda if she does it again.”

Seemingly stunned by the nun’s behaviour, Mean added that “she is very naughty.”

The nun had caused all sorts of problems in the pagoda since she had arrived from Battambang about a year ago, driving most of the laymen and old monks to stay in another pagoda, Mean said, adding that she has strange tattoos all over her body of the sort he had never seen on a nun before.

Two of the novices’ parents had decided to remove their children from the pagoda, he said.

The nun and her son, pagoda chief Nub Kol, could not be reached for comment.