A moth­er is now seek­ing an­swers af­ter her son's hair was burnt dur­ing an ap­par­ent prank at the Coryal High School yes­ter­day.

Fe­li­cia Rag­bir said two stu­dents used a cig­a­rette lighter to burn the hair on her son Rober­to Gre­goire's head. She said while her 13-year-old son, a Form Two stu­dent, suf­fered no ma­jor in­juries, she was dis­traught that such an in­ci­dent could oc­cur in school.

The mat­ter was re­port­ed to Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion by teach­ers and the two boys were tak­en to the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion where of­fi­cers took state­ments from them yes­ter­day.

Po­lice al­so called in all the par­ents but the rel­a­tives of the boys who per­pe­trat­ed the act nev­er showed up. The boys al­leged­ly told the of­fi­cers they were from sin­gle par­ent homes and were un­able to give their fa­thers' names to the po­lice.

Speak­ing to the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, Rag­bir said she re­ceived a call from the school's vice-prin­ci­pal, Usha Garie, in­form­ing her that her son had been in­volved in an in­ci­dent yes­ter­day. She said she be­gan to pan­ic as so many things went through her head but was sub­se­quent­ly told to go to the Cu­mu­to Po­lice Sta­tion.

On ar­rival there she found her son sit­ting on a chair in the charge room while the oth­er stu­dents were be­ing ques­tioned by two fe­male of­fi­cers.

Rag­bir said some of her son's hair was burnt but he was okay oth­er­wise. She said the po­lice told her the boys said it was a prank and they did not mean to harm her son. Po­lice then asked Rag­bir to go out­side with her son and de­cide what ac­tion should be tak­en against the boys.

Rag­bir said af­ter speak­ing to her son they de­cid­ed not to pur­sue the mat­ter any fur­ther but she asked the po­lice to warn the boys to stay away from her son.

The boys were then asked by po­lice to apol­o­gise to the boy and his moth­er with which they com­plied.

Rag­bir lat­er left the sta­tion with her son but the two boys were still wait­ing for their par­ents/guardian's ar­rival up to last evening.

RALPH BAN­WARIE