Queen Mary students find their books torn by unknown miscreant

One of the students said PT classes are held on Thursday afternoons. “But our PT teacher wanted to leave early, so he swapped classes with the maths teacher in the morning,” the student said. The children returned to their classroom after the PT class at around 9.30 am. “Everything looked proper. Even the door was shut,” said a student. But the mess becameevident the moment the door was opened.

“All of us started crying. We were scared,” a student said. Worse still were `messages’ left behind in notebooks. “Some of the messages were: `This is the beginning, I’m not yet finished, I’ll be coming back,”’ she added.

Another student revealed similar events had occurred twice earlier this week, but not on such a big scale. “On Tuesday, the files of one girl were found to be torn. Then on Wednesday, her notes were torn. The girl complained to our class teachers, and they said they’d look into it,” the student noted.

After Thursday’s incident, the 10-year-olds are worried about safe-keeping of their precious notes, while parents are scared of the implications of the whole affair. A parent said: “It’s very strange… I don’t understand… even the prayer books were torn… I’m very scared.”

According to a student, children in the other division of Std V were also subjected to similar treatment the same day. “They had gone for PT class just beforelunch. When they came back, they found one or two books torn,” the student said.

Chairman of the Christian Medical Fellowship Trust running the school, Sadanand Shinde, said: “It’s too early to say anything. We don’t know who did it, whether it is a student or not, and we still have to investigate the matter.” The school has not lodged a police complaint as “it is an internal matter.”

Besides, as the principal was on leave for the day, “I can’t say exactly what had happened,” he explained. Asked if the incident raised questions about the school’s security, he replied: “We’ll look into the matter and decide. Till then, I refuse to comment.”

Students, meanwhile, are gearing up to tackle the problem. One of them said: “I’m going to lock my desk from now on, but I wonder why anyone should tear up our books, of all things.”