Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Li­brary as­sis­tant Rav­elle Ra­j­coomar-Hari­nar­ine stayed away from the Rio Claro West Sec­ondary School for the sec­ond day yes­ter­day af­ter be­ing al­leged­ly beat­en by a gang of fe­male stu­dents last Thurs­day.

The moth­er of one, who is as­signed to the school as a Li­brary As­sis­tant 1, in an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian last week, ex­pressed con­cern for her life claim­ing she was mer­ci­less­ly beat­en by one of the girls in a gang of Form III stu­dents.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day the 29-year-old was hes­i­tant to speak about the in­ci­dent. She said she did not at­tend school but in­stead at­tend­ed a meet­ing with her em­ploy­er Nalis in Port-of-Spain.

She de­clined to speak fur­ther about last week's al­leged at­tack.

"They told me I'm not sup­posed to give in­for­ma­tion to the me­dia. I was told I should not be speak­ing to the me­dia. I have no fur­ther in­for­ma­tion to give," said Ra­j­coomar-Hari­nar­ine.

Yes­ter­day Ra­j­coomar-Hari­nar­ine's hus­band Christo­pher, when con­tact­ed, said it was his wife's de­ci­sion to make on whether she would speak about the in­ci­dent any fur­ther.

Last week Ra­j­coomar-Hari­nar­ine told the T&T Guardian she and two OJTs were at­tacked by the stu­dents af­ter they com­plained to the prin­ci­pal Reynold Sibaran the stu­dents were mis­be­hav­ing in the li­brary dur­ing the lunch break.

She said the prin­ci­pal banned the stu­dents from the li­brary.

The li­brary as­sis­tant said the stu­dents wait­ed for her and the OJTs to leave the prin­ci­pal's of­fice and pounced on them.

She said she was pushed to the ground, kicked, cuffed and dragged by the hair by one of the girls while the oth­er two girls pushed the OJTs and re­strained them from help­ing her.

Yes­ter­day the Rio Claro po­lice said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion has been launched.

How­ev­er they de­clined to ad­mit to whether the stu­dents in­volved had been in­ter­viewed.

Yes­ter­day Prin­ci­pal Sibaran al­so de­clined to com­ment on the in­ci­dent, nor did he want to say whether any fol­low-up ac­tion was tak­en.

He said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to Ra­j­coomar-Hari­nar­ine's al­leged beat­ing is on-go­ing.

"We can­not give any in­for­ma­tion to the press. The mat­ter is still be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. It is not com­plete. We are not al­lowed to give any in­for­ma­tion to the me­dia. If you need any in­for­ma­tion you can con­tact the com­mu­ni­ca­tions de­part­ment at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion," Sibaran said.

In­quiries are con­tin­u­ing in­to the al­le­ga­tions.