School of 'jihadi brides' under investigation by counter extremism officials

The east London school where four pupils who left to become 'jihadi brides' in Syria is under investigation by anti-terror police.

Teenagers Kadiza Sultana, 16, Shamima Begum, 15, and Amira Abase, 15, left for Syria, travelling through Turkey to Isis controlled territory. It has since emerged that five of their fellow pupils at Bethnal Green Academy had their passports confiscated. They were planning to make a similar journey.

The Department for Education announced that officers from its "due diligence and counter-extremism division" will investigate whether pupils are being indoctrinated by Islamic extremists.

Parents at the school told the Daily Mail that they had met to discuss the problem of the radicalisation of Muslim pupils, and urged authorities to conduct a thorough investigation.

Nazrul Islam, whose 13-year-old son attends the school, said: "We have been left in a horrible situation and now parents are worried they don't know what their children are doing. The police told the school that they were concerned about the girls. Did the school then contact the parents? What did they know and what did they do about it? We need to get to the bottom of it."

Masked Isis militant "Jihadi John", who was named as Mohammed Emwazi, studied in a school in west London. Now schools across the UK, where current or former pupils were found to have links to terrorist organisations, are being investigated by the Department of Education's counter-extremist division.

A source told the Daily Telegraph that in the future any school where pupils were found to have a link to terror groups would face investigation.