Shas­tri Boodan

Par­ents of pupils at­tend­ing the Munroe Road Hin­du School are urg­ing Gov­ern­ment to en­sure more se­cu­ri­ty is pro­vid­ed for the school and that laws are en­forced so that crim­i­nals are kept at bay.

They made the call as school re­sumed on Tues­day, fol­low­ing the mur­der of for­mer Ron­nie Pierre out­side the school's fence on Mon­day. Class­es were dis­missed ear­ly fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent.

A 35-year-old male par­ent who wished not to be iden­ti­fied said, “On Fri­day, class­es were dis­missed be­cause of a bomb scare and on Mon­day to hear that class­es were dis­missed be­cause a man was killed out­side the school fence, this is in­tol­er­a­ble. We have reached the point where crim­i­nals just don’t care about any­one, far less chil­dren. The Gov­ern­ment must en­sure that the po­lice do their work. When peo­ple com­plain about crime, the po­lice run and have a road­block in the mid­dle of the day and tor­ment peo­ple go­ing to work. They don’t go out­side bars on a Fri­day night and ar­rest drunk peo­ple who are dri­ving. When peo­ple call for com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing, they round up some chil­dren from the com­mu­ni­ty and res­i­dents and have a march against crime with plac­ards. Be se­ri­ous, crim­i­nals are not tak­ing on any march against crime and cry­ing boo hoo. They (the po­lice) want to have in­ter­faith ser­vice, pub­lic re­la­tions, to me, I feel po­lice want to do every­thing be­sides lock up crim­i­nals. Go out there and do your jobs.”

De­osaran Ram­lochan, an­oth­er par­ent, said he was deeply wor­ried about the safe­ty of all stu­dents.

“The sit­u­a­tion is re­al­ly bad right now, it is on­ly so much we could do as par­ents. Par­ents do not want to send their chil­dren to school. The prob­lem is so bad that it’s in­fest­ing the whole world. I am hop­ing that some­thing could be done.”

He said many par­ents may have to re­sort to home-school­ing if crime gets worse.

“This is a place (re­fer­ring to schools) you think they would be safe, but a mur­der hap­pened a stone’s throw away. It's hit­ting home and peo­ple don’t want to come out of their homes.”

Am­ri­ka, the par­ent of a 6-year-old child, said her child was ab­sent on Mon­day, the day of the mur­der. Am­ri­ka said she learned of the killing on so­cial me­dia.

“I was re­al­ly wor­ried about what was hap­pen­ing with the oth­er kids. Some­thing like this nev­er hap­pened be­fore in this area and around the school. I am not too wor­ried, I have faith in the prin­ci­pal and staff when it comes to tak­ing care of the stu­dents.”

De­vanan Ram­bar­ran, 67, who came to pick up his grand­chil­dren, said times were get­ting worse.

“Things have changed dras­ti­cal­ly, you find more mur­ders, more killing, more house-break­ing, and it is ter­ri­ble now. Par­ents have to be more care­ful and take it one day at a time.”

Kamir Sam­lal, who has three chil­dren in the school, said his chil­dren were for­tu­nate that they didn’t hear or see any­thing. Sam­lal said the prin­ci­pal han­dled the sit­u­a­tion in the best way and the chil­dren were calm.

“Crime on the rise, it’s get­ting out of con­trol, this is the first time by the school, it’s not a com­mon thing and I hope it doesn’t be­come a com­mon thing, there should be more se­cu­ri­ty by all schools.”

Suresh Singh, a par­ent of two, said all schools should have a ded­i­cat­ed rapid re­sponse line to the po­lice so they could re­spond quick­ly to all emer­gen­cies.

Mean­while, four per­sons from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, along with the School's Su­per­vi­sors, met with pupils and staff re­spec­tive­ly on Tues­day. The PTA al­so met with prin­ci­pal Pun­dit Rishi Ma­haraj. The school is al­so prepar­ing for the forth­com­ing Baal Vikkas com­pe­ti­tion.