Two Pe­nal Sec­ondary School stu­dents who en­dured a vi­o­lent lunchtime as­sault on Thurs­day in­side a class­room, are now afraid to re­turn to the in­sti­tu­tion for fear of be­ing beat­en again. 

The Form Two and Four stu­dents suf­fered bruis­es and scratch­es dur­ing the at­tack, where they were kicked, beat­en and force­ful­ly dragged on the ground by a group of school­mates around mid­day on Thurs­day. The fight was cap­tured on cam­era and sub­se­quent­ly shared among stu­dents.

Hug­ging her moth­er as tears rolled down her face yes­ter­day, the Form Four stu­dent said she felt ashamed and was now scared to go back to school.

 “I don’t want to go back. It’s not nice that hap­pened. I hope the stu­dents who beat me get sus­pend­ed,” she cried.

She said the fight start­ed af­ter some stu­dents be­gan teas­ing her about the dan­druff on her hair. 

Say­ing she was anaemic and suf­fers from a dry scalp, the stu­dent said she tried to leave the class­room but was pulled back and slammed on the ground.

When her cousin tried to help, the stu­dents at­tacked her too, cuff­ing and kick­ing her re­peat­ed­ly on her back.

Es­cort­ing her limp­ing daugh­ter as they walked to the school gates yes­ter­day, Sher­ry Dowlat stu­dent broke down in tears.

 “We are work­ing so hard to send our chil­dren to school, and when we think they are safe, this hap­pens,” she cried.

She said af­ter learn­ing about the fight and see­ing the video, she con­tact­ed a dean at the school, who al­leged­ly told her he did not care about any fight. 

Dowlat said her daugh­ter had been haem­or­rhag­ing and she took her to the Siparia Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal, where she was treat­ed. Show­ing the bruis­es on her daugh­ter’s arms, head, and neck, Dowlat said she want­ed jus­tice.

To make mat­ters worse, she said she went to the Pe­nal Po­lice Sta­tion to make a re­port but was told to go to the Siparia Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice. Dowlat said the Siparia po­lice told her to re­turn last night to lodge an of­fi­cial re­port.

Mean­while, Mokesh Dowlat said he was hor­ri­fied that his daugh­ter was at­tacked in school and no one both­ered to call to tell them about the at­tack. 

“When I saw my daugh­ter, I could not recog­nise her be­cause her fore­head was swelled up. They beat her mer­ci­less­ly. When I saw the video of how my daugh­ter got licks, I was hor­ri­fied. I don’t even beat my dog like that. We sent her to school ex­pect­ing her to be safe,” he said.

Mokesh called on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to in­ves­ti­gate the fre­quent fights at the school. 

“There is a safe­ty of­fi­cer here, a dean here. What are they here for? Why are they not pro­tect­ing the chil­dren?” Mokesh said. 

He re­called how his daugh­ter’s school uni­form was torn and her shirt blood­ied when he came to col­lect her af­ter school. 

Say­ing fights oc­cur dai­ly at Pe­nal Sec­ondary, Mokesh blamed high teacher ab­sen­teeism as a con­trib­u­to­ry fac­tor.

 “This is not the first fight in this school. This school has fights dai­ly, and the safe­ty of­fi­cer and the dean do noth­ing,” he al­leged.

“The prin­ci­pal is not high­light­ing what is tak­ing place. How many times must we com­plain that there is no teacher in the class? The teach­ers stay home. There is no su­per­vi­sion in the class­room.”

Guardian Me­dia asked to speak to the prin­ci­pal yes­ter­day, but a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer said she was in a meet­ing.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said: “Fights are rou­tine­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed. The prin­ci­pal leads this.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin for com­ment but calls and mes­sages went unan­swered.