An in­ci­dent in which a sev­en-year-old pupil of the Gas­par­il­lo Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured may have been ac­ci­den­tal.

The child is cur­rent­ly in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal with a rup­tured spleen.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath stat­ed that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion was still on­go­ing, but pre­lim­i­nary re­ports in­di­cate that the in­ci­dent ap­pears to have been an ac­ci­dent.

As­sur­ing that they con­tin­ue to treat the mat­ter with the ut­most se­ri­ous­ness and con­cern, the min­istry stat­ed that of­fi­cers from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, the School Su­per­vi­sion and Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion, and the TTPS have all vis­it­ed the school to pro­vide sup­port and to car­ry out their re­spec­tive in­quiries. The min­istry said it had al­so ex­tend­ed sup­port to the fam­i­ly and would con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion close­ly. It is be­lieved that the child suf­fered the in­jury in school. Po­lice said the boy was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal on Wednes­day af­ter com­plain­ing of ab­dom­i­nal pain. A re­port was made to the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice, fol­low­ing which the moth­er told po­lice that a teacher in­formed her that her son was pushed in school. Of­fi­cers from the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion vis­it­ed the school. Po­lice, how­ev­er, said the in­juries the child sus­tained were in­con­sis­tent with a sim­ple push.

When Guardian Me­dia was un­able to speak with the child’s par­ents yes­ter­day. A res­i­dent said the fa­ther was at the hos­pi­tal vis­it­ing his son, and his moth­er went to the po­lice sta­tion. At­tempts to reach the moth­er on her cell­phone were un­suc­cess­ful. Cpl Mat­loo and PC Soogrim are con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

—Sascha Wil­son