Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

The moth­er of a Holy Faith Con­vent stu­dent who was sav­age­ly beat­en out­side the school gates on Tues­day is call­ing for the as­sailants to face the full brunt of the law.

The 45-year-old woman said her daugh­ter was kept overnight at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for tests and while there were no ma­jor in­juries, she is in sig­nif­i­cant pain.

“Her face is bad­ly swollen. One of her eyes could not open. She was hav­ing prob­lems see­ing.

“They stamp up all on her face, her neck. It looks like some­body tried to choke her. A lot of cuts and bruis­es, and black and blue marks all over her skin. She is in a lot of pain,” she said.

A 30-sec­ond video showed five girls—stu­dents from oth­er schools who were dressed in ca­su­al clothes—beat­ing and kick­ing the girl while she was on the ground.

The vic­tim’s moth­er said her daugh­ter wasn’t the tar­get - it was an­oth­er stu­dent who had al­ready left the school com­pound.

“They saw my daugh­ter by the gate, and they just grabbed her. I sus­pect they would have grabbed any­body who was stand­ing there. They were so thirst­ing for a fight,” she said

Af­ter the in­ci­dent, one of the girls post­ed a video nam­ing the Holy Faith stu­dent they had an is­sue with. She claimed some stu­dents of the school had taunt­ed them at a gas sta­tion and then ran back to school. Un­able to en­ter the com­pound, they pulled one of the girls who es­caped and then pushed the vic­tim for­ward and they grabbed her.

Re­call­ing that her daugh­ter was bloody and bruised when she got to the school, the moth­er said: “If they go­ing to say they are chil­dren and they are un­der­age, they have par­ents, and it is time some­body is held ac­count­able for this kind of thing.”

The woman said she was told by the po­lice the as­sailants were from three dif­fer­ent schools and they were ac­com­pa­nied by boys who blocked peo­ple from help­ing her daugh­ter.

“If that par­ent did not act so force­ful­ly to push the girls off my daugh­ter, they might have killed my daugh­ter there and they just run away, and they just go back to their homes, and I would be the one suf­fer­ing -me and my fam­i­ly.

“There must be con­se­quences. I think is time they start to jail or pun­ish or some­thing be­cause my daugh­ter still has to go back out to school and she has to feel safe.”

Pro­pri­etors and work­ers busi­ness­es near the school said groups of stu­dents of­ten loi­ter af­ter class­es, get­ting in­to ver­bal and phys­i­cal fights. They said there are po­lice pa­trols but they want a more vis­i­ble pres­ence.

Cou­va Cham­ber pres­i­dent De­o­raj Ma­hase sug­gest­ed a fixed po­lice pres­ence from 2.30 to 3.30 pm.

“It will auger well to not just ad­dress any is­sue that may arise with re­gards to the school pop­u­la­tion but al­so for the busi­ness­es and traf­fic con­ges­tion that hap­pens as well,” he said.

On Tues­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath called for a com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent. He said the min­istry is work­ing close­ly with school of­fi­cials and au­thor­i­ties to en­sure prompt ac­tion.

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice South/Cen­tral, ACP Wayne Mys­tar, called the as­sault “a co­or­di­nat­ed act of vi­o­lence” and said ar­rests are im­mi­nent. He said the po­lice are col­lect­ing state­ments and await­ing the vic­tim’s med­ical re­port.