Difficult time: Chong consoling Pravin’s parents Selvaraja and R. Devani, 45, when he went to pay his respects at their home in Nilai.
NILAI: M. Selvaraja will live with regret for not believing his son’s story that he was attacked by glue-sniffing schoolboys and forced to drink poison.
Selvaraja, 51, who is a rubber tapper, said he was at home when his son S. Pravin, 15, came home drenched last Wednesday.
“When I asked him what had happened, he told me that a group of boys had pinned him down outside his school and forced him to swallow some liquid.
“Then they threw him into a stream,” he said when met at his son’s wake yesterday.
He said he had doubts about his son’s story as he could smell glue on Pravin’s body.
He added that his son had once indulged in glue-sniffing.
“I actually stopped my son from going to school in late March as he used to mix with boys who smoked as well as sniffed glue,” he said.
He said during that time, he was looking to move his son to another school.
Selvaraja said his son went to bed after telling him about the incident.
However, when he woke up the following morning, Pravin complained of severe stomach pain and vomited.
“I saw blueish traces in his vomit. I then rushed him to a clinic,” he said, adding that the boy was then transferred to the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital (TJH) in Seremban.
Selvaraja said while at the hospital, Pravin wrote on a piece of paper telling his story of how he was assaulted by boys wearing school uniforms with red ties.
“He gave it to the policemen who came to record his statement. My son could not talk as his throat was swollen,” he added.
Sadly, Pravin, died on Tuesday night.
Selvaraja hopes the authorities will do more to curb disciplinary problems in the school.
Deputy Education Minister Datuk Chong Sin Woon, who paid his respects to Pravin at the family house yesterday, called on the people to help prevent disciplinary problems of schoolchildren instead of leaving the matter to the school authorities alone.
“I have pledged to the father that we will investigate the matter. We want to know the condition of the school, whether there are disciplinary issues or external forces influencing the school environment,” he added.
Nilai OCPD Supt Zaludin Zaldino said police have managed to get a few leads on the attack.
During the incident, a group of youths apparently pinned Pravin down and forced him to consume a liquid believed to be insecticide after he allegedly chided them for sniffing glue.
Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/05/04/my-son-was-forced-to-drink-poison-rubber-tapper-regrets-not-believing-schoolboy/#Gg1yGf0Mze2hd65U.99
