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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Prank blamed for school stabbing

by

20140204

One of the stu­dents in­volved in Mon­day's bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent at Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, said yes­ter­day he be­lieved the stab­bing was an over-re­ac­tion to an in­no­cent prank.The in­ci­dent, which de­vel­oped when a Form Four stu­dent placed a cock­roach in his school­mate's bag, end­ed in vi­o­lence and both stu­dents had to be tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, with one of them be­ing ward­ed in a se­ri­ous con­di­tion that re­quired surgery.

Sit­ting with his fa­ther on his hos­pi­tal bed yes­ter­day, the 15-year-old stu­dent of South Oropouche, who can­not be iden­ti­fied due to his age, ad­mit­ted to play­ing the prac­ti­cal joke. How­ev­er, he said he ex­pect­ed a re­venge prank in re­turn not vi­o­lence."I am re­al­ly con­cerned about why he did it," the stu­dent said."I don't re­al­ly think it was the right re­ac­tion to what I did. I am kind of con­cerned about him, with what he did and his men­tal health. It was not any­thing too se­ri­ous, I didn't think he would have tak­en it so far."

He added: "On Mon­day he came up to me and the first thing he said was 'I want to tell you some­thing pri­vate.'"I as­sumed it was some stu­pid re­venge to the prank so I said 'well ok,' be­cause I fig­ured that was go­ing to hap­pen. He told me to close my eyes and put out my hands so I as­sumed he was go­ing to put some­thing stu­pid in my hands but then he stabbed me."The stu­dent said he be­came afraid and over­whelmed when he was stabbed and some­one took him to the prin­ci­pal's of­fice. A teacher took him to the hos­pi­tal.

He said al­though he and the oth­er stu­dent were not friends, they would speak to each oth­er from time-to-time.With re­gard to his health, the stu­dent said there was no se­vere pain al­though he was stabbed in the back and chest, adding he was on­ly wait­ing on an X-ray be­fore the doc­tors gave the go-ahead to dis­charge him.

His fa­ther said his on­ly con­cern was the phys­i­cal health of the boys. The par­ent said he in­tend­ed to meet with the Catholic Ed­u­ca­tion Board, po­lice and the oth­er stu­dent's par­ents. He said he had al­ready spo­ken to the oth­er stu­dents par­ents soon af­ter the in­ci­dent and their con­ver­sa­tions were cor­dial.

Cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Ali­cia Bus­by, yes­ter­day said both stu­dents re­mained ward­ed at hos­pi­tal. She said the stu­dent who al­leged­ly in­flict­ed the in­juries on his school­mate al­so un­der­went surgery and was last re­port­ed to be in a sta­ble con­di­tion.Bus­by said the min­istry's Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices and the school's chap­lain, Mon­sign­or Chris­t­ian Pereira, con­clud­ed coun­selling ses­sions at the school yes­ter­day.

Yes­ter­day, stu­dents were al­so tak­en to mass at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Cathe­dral along Har­ris Prom­e­nade, where Fa­ther Joseph Jubras­ingh made a spe­cial prayer for the in­jured stu­dents.Pereira said he coun­seled stu­dents to help them with meth­ods of deal­ing with con­flict."I just asked them to learn how to take con­trol of them­selves, how to be ap­peased with them­selves, how to deal with the pres­sures of life, the pres­sures of the so­ci­ety and how to in­te­grate these pres­sures in­to their de­vel­op­ment as young men," Pereira said.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, two stu­dents were in­volved in an ar­gu­ment at the school bas­ket­ball court on Mon­day, where the 14-year-old stu­dent ac­cused the 15-year-old stu­dent of plac­ing a cock­roach in his school­bag last Fri­day, know­ing he has a pho­bia for the in­sect.The younger stu­dent al­leged­ly had a blade and at­tacked the 15-year-old, cut­ting him on the right side of his back and chest. Af­ter see­ing the blood, he be­came fright­ened and slit his own wrist, fore­arms and the side of his neck, po­lice said.


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