Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Three men ac­cost­ed two stu­dents of Shi­va Boys Hin­du Col­lege and dealt them sev­er­al blows be­fore rob­bing them of their knap­sacks con­tain­ing school books and cash.

Po­lice are un­cer­tain whether the as­sailants stole the book­bags be­liev­ing they con­tained lap­tops. In­ves­ti­ga­tors said at around 3 pm, Aaron Man­ick, 15, of Di­a­mond Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do and Ros­tan Ram­lal, 16, of Siparia were on their way to get trans­porta­tion at Bhups­ingh Trace, Pe­nal, when they were ac­cost­ed by two men. The rob­bers beat the stu­dents and forced them to hand over $40 in cash.

They al­so robbed them of two Jans­port knap­sacks which con­tained more than $400 in school books, and a cell­phone worth $300. The men then fled. Both stu­dents went to the Pe­nal po­lice sta­tion where they made a re­port. Po­lice Con­sta­bles Bap­tiste and Deo con­duct­ed search­es for the sus­pects who were up to late yes­ter­day not found.

Sev­er­al peo­ple have voiced con­cerns that stu­dents would be­come po­ten­tial tar­gets fol­low­ing Gov­ern­ment's plan to dis­trib­ute lap­tops. Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh said that Form One stu­dents were ex­pect­ed to be­gin re­ceiv­ing their lap­tops by the end of Sep­tem­ber.