War­ring mem­bers of the Sixx and Sev­en gangs en­gaged in a bloody brawl at the Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School yes­ter­day, leav­ing sev­er­al stu­dents in­jured.

While po­lice said at least 12 pupils were hurt which in­clud­ed be­ing stabbed, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed that five pupils had been tak­en for med­ical treat­ment at the near­by hos­pi­tal.

Ini­tial re­ports from po­lice stat­ed that a pair of scis­sors was used to car­ry out the at­tack. Three stu­dents were tak­en to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty, and one was sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred to the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

A source at the school, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said the fight broke out dur­ing re­cess at 10 am. The source al­so said the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice was dam­aged dur­ing the melee.

Par­ents who came to take their chil­dren home af­ter learn­ing about the fra­cas told Guardian Me­dia that teach­ers seemed to have lost con­trol of stu­dents and were afraid to in­ter­vene.

“These stu­dents are af­fect­ed by too many out­side in­flu­ences. The mu­sic they lis­ten to pro­motes gang cul­ture. Plus they de­crim­i­nalised mar­i­jua­na. All of that con­tributes to what is hap­pen­ing now,” a par­ent said.

An­oth­er par­ent said his daugh­ter called him in tears.

She was very much afraid and she was cry­ing when I picked her up,” the par­ent said.

While most par­ents did not know what trig­gered the brawl, po­lice of­fi­cials said that the Sixx and Sev­en Gangs had mem­bers from Quinam and Ran­cho Que­ma­do. On Wednes­day, the gangs fought in Siparia and this lat­er spread to Pa­lo Seco.

Yes­ter­day, it cul­mi­nat­ed with young­sters from one gang en­ter­ing the Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School to con­front young mem­bers from a ri­val gang who at­tend class­es at the school.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said while the mat­ter is be­ing probed, the in­ci­dent did not lead to school be­ing dis­missed ear­ly.

She said, “There was a stab­bing in­ci­dent at Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary this morn­ing. The five stu­dents in­jured were tak­en for med­ical at­ten­tion. There is no in­di­ca­tion that any stu­dent is crit­i­cal­ly in­jured at this time.”

TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin con­demned the brawl. He said it was sus­pect­ed that gang ac­tiv­i­ty had in­fil­trat­ed the school.

He added there have been sev­er­al in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence in re­cent times.

 “There ap­pears to be an in­fil­tra­tion of gang ac­tiv­i­ties at the school not on­ly from stu­dents of the school but oth­er schools in the area

“We un­der­stand that the prin­ci­pal has been re­quest­ing on a num­ber of oc­cas­sions for an in­crease in se­cu­ri­ty guards so that there could be ef­fec­tive check­ing of the stu­dents,” he said.

Mooni­lal: Rein­tro­duce school se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures

Mean­while, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, in a state­ment, called for ur­gent safe­ty mea­sures, in­clud­ing the rein­tro­duc­tion of the schools’ se­cu­ri­ty pro­gramme es­tab­lished un­der the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion. Mooni­lal crit­i­cised the cur­rent gov­ern­ment for what he said was its fail­ure to curb vi­o­lence, urg­ing the dis­missal of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds. He stressed the need for met­al de­tec­tors, com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, and men­tor­ing pro­grammes to com­bat the es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence.

“The Gov­ern­ment’s in­abil­i­ty to curb the crime epi­dem­ic is ev­i­dent even in our schools. With­out ef­fec­tive mea­sures, the vi­o­lence will con­tin­ue to wors­en,” Mooni­lal stat­ed. He al­so said the De­fence Force and oth­er arms of the pro­tec­tive ser­vice must car­ry out men­tor­ing ex­er­cis­es.

“There should be all-round im­proved schools’ safe­ty ex­er­cis­es, with an en­hanced role for the Main­te­nance, Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS). The Gov­ern­ment must rein­tro­duce the schools’ se­cu­ri­ty pro­gramme which the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion im­ple­ment­ed and which the Row­ley regime ar­bi­trar­i­ly scrapped,” he said.