RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

In­trud­ers from war­ring gangs Six and Sev­en en­gaged in a bloody brawl at the Pa­lo Seco Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School on Thurs­day wound­ing sev­er­al stu­dents.

While po­lice sources say at least 12 pupils were hurt, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed that five pupils had been tak­en for med­ical treat­ment at the hos­pi­tal.

Ini­tial re­ports from po­lice say the wounds were in­flict­ed with a pair of scis­sors. Three stu­dents were tak­en to the Siparia Dis­trict Health Fa­cil­i­ty and one was sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred to the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said the fight broke out dur­ing the first re­cess at 10 am. 

Par­ents who came to col­lect their chil­dren told Guardian Me­dia that teach­ers seemed to have lost con­trol of stu­dents and were afraid to in­ter­vene. The source al­so said the prin­ci­pal's of­fice was dam­aged dur­ing the melee.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly con­firmed the in­ci­dent say­ing: "There was a stab­bing in­ci­dent at Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary this morn­ing. The five stu­dents in­jured were tak­en for med­ical at­ten­tion. There is no in­di­ca­tion that any stu­dent is crit­i­cal­ly in­jured at this time."

She al­so de­nied that the school was dis­missed.

"It is in ses­sion I await a full re­port as in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing," she added.

CNC3 News al­so con­tact­ed the Pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­tin Lum Kin for com­ment and we are await­ing his re­sponse.