Given crew cuts all over a fight
BY JONATHAN CHEW AND ANDREW SAGAYAMKUALA LUMPUR: A group of boys who were present when a fight broke out at their school in Selayang Baru ended up with shaven heads at the nearby police station.
The 15 students, all from Form One or Form Two, were hauled to the Gombak district police headquarters after their alleged involvement in a fight with another group of youths on Thursday afternoon.
Their parents are, however, angry that the police held the boys for hours and also over the haircuts.
Gombak Deputy OCPD Supt Abu Bakar Johar confirmed that the boys were given crew cuts but said this was done by a discipline teacher from SM Selayang Baru, not the police.
The teacher, he said, had hired a barber to crop the students' hair at the police headquarters.
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CROPPED: Some of the schoolboys posing in front of SM Selayang Baru with their crew cuts. |
Supt Abu Bakar said the police were looking for a youth in his 20s, who was believed to have instigated the fight.
“It is understood that the youth's younger brother had an earlier misunderstanding with one of the students,” he said.
It is learnt that there have been occasional fights in the school and its vicinity in the past.
According to the boys, four youths had entered the school compound at 1.10pm on Thursday and instigated a fight with some of the students.
The four outsiders fled before teachers, who were in a meeting during the incident, could stop the brawl. The police were then called in.
One of the students, R. Gokhulanath, 13, claimed that only four of the boys had actually come to blows with the outsiders, while he and 10 others were mere on-lookers.
“We tried to explain ourselves, but the police officers just thought we were all involved in the fight,” he claimed yesterday when met at the school.
The students also claimed that it was the police who gave them the crew cuts and that they were held for seven hours without any food.
Gokhulanath's father, businessman S. Ramenbran, 39, said he was appalled when he saw his son at the police headquarters at 9pm with his head shaven.
“Who wouldn't be shocked?” he said.
Another businessman P. Maniam, 47, said he felt ashamed that he could not do anything to help his Form Two son, Dalmindran, 14, who was also given a crew cut.
“How can he go to school now? People will think he is a gangster,” he said.
Fishmonger Bee Swee Guan, 46, was unhappy with the way the school handled the matter.
“I don't have any problem with teachers punishing my son if he has misbehaved or broken school rules.
“However, the school should not have allowed the boys to be taken to the police station without informing the parents,” said the father of Form Two student Bee Yong Ze.
Principal Noraini Mohd Yassin declined to comment.
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