Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Stu­dents of Moru­ga Com­pos­ite who claimed to have suf­fered an un­nat­ur­al de­mon­ic at­tack are re­fus­ing to go back to class­es. For a sec­ond day, blood-cur­dling screams echoed from the school as an­oth­er batch of stu­dents fell ill, prompt­ing school of­fi­cials to dis­miss class­es. As Ro­man Catholic priest Fa­ther Antony Baskar chant­ed prayers, sprin­kled holy wa­ter and dis­trib­uted rosaries to the writhing, scream­ing chil­dren, for­mer stu­dent Cindy Sinanan, who claimed to be de­mon-pos­sessed, said the dev­il had in­vad­ed the school. She said an in­ter-faith ser­vice must be held to cleanse the school of evil forces.

Sinanan, who dropped out of her "A" Lev­el class last year fol­low­ing a No­vem­ber 5 at­tack, said she fell in­to a trance while at home on Wednes­day and was spir­i­tu­al­ly trans­port­ed in­to the school. She claimed: "I saw what was hap­pen­ing, even if I wasn't there. I tried to tell them. "I heard voic­es. I heard the stu­dents run­ning and scream­ing and call­ing all the names of the peo­ple who were af­fect­ed and will be af­fect­ed." Pant­i­ng and rolling her eyes, Sinanan mut­tered that school of­fi­cials need­ed to split up the chil­dren be­cause the demons grew stronger when every­one was to­geth­er.

Her moth­er said since in No­vem­ber last year, Sinanan had been tak­en for sev­er­al med­ical ex­am­i­na­tions but doc­tors could not find what was wrong with her. She said be­cause of the evil spir­its, her daugh­ter had to stop school and miss her "A" Lev­el ex­ams. Mean­while, Form Two stu­dent Leonar Ottway said she was in the mul­ti-pur­pose hall with her friend, Ten­isha, on Wednes­day when Ten­isha sud­den­ly faint­ed. Ottway said: "I re­mem­ber that I bent to pick up her bag and then I start­ed to feel dizzy. Some­thing was chok­ing me. I start­ed to run. I can­not re­mem­ber much.

"I was scared, I know I was not my­self. I saw a woman with a black gown chas­ing me. I felt that some­thing was pulling me in­to the toi­let but I was fight­ing it." Form One stu­dent Re­an­na Charles, whose uni­form was torn and her left hand ban­daged, said she too heard voic­es in her head. "I heard the names of sev­er­al girls. Some of them were my friends. I just start­ed to kick up and run. I couldn't breathe. I sprained my hand. I couldn't re­mem­ber how," she said. Both girls said they did not wish to go back to school. Two more stu­dents–Ten­isha Ram­lal and Den­isha John–said the prob­lems were ex­ac­er­bat­ed af­ter school of­fi­cials stopped hold­ing week­ly re­li­gious in­struc­tion at the school.

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Fr Baskar, of the Moru­ga RC Church, said while he was pray­ing for the af­fect­ed chil­dren yes­ter­day, they were spit­ting, claw­ing and scream­ing. He said he placed the af­fect­ed chil­dren in sep­a­rate parts of the school and be­gan pray­ing for them. Baskar said an in­ter-faith ser­vice should be held soon. Pas­tor Mark Daniel said it was ev­i­dent evil spir­its had in­vad­ed the school.