Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has con­demned the at­tack on Tu­na­puna (Simb­hoonath Capildeo) Hin­du Pri­ma­ry School prin­ci­pal Jee­wan Ramd­hanie.

"I saw where two cit­i­zens went in­to a school and al­leged­ly beat up a prin­ci­pal over the ac­tions of the prin­ci­pal in deal­ing with a stu­dent. I con­sid­er this to be a prob­a­bly one of the worst crim­i­nal ac­tions to have tak­en place here in re­cent times," Row­ley said af­ter re­turn­ing from the 30th Cari­com meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis.

"There are far-reach­ing con­se­quences of that stu­pid­i­ty," he added.

Row­ley said ac­tions like that had the po­ten­tial to de­stroy the "al­ready tot­ter­ing school sys­tem."

"For this to hap­pen, it must not be ac­cept­ed as a mat­ter of course, ex­am­ples must be made of them so that no third per­son con­tem­plates same," Row­ley said.

Row­ley said teach­ers should not have to wor­ry about en­forc­ing rules and reg­u­la­tions in schools.

"I trust that this will be the last time we will see such a thing and it should be con­demned by every voice in this coun­try, every par­ent, every or­gan­i­sa­tion," he said.

He said the long arm of the law need­ed to reach out, nab those re­spon­si­ble and deal with them to dis­cour­age any re­cur­rence.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Ramd­hanie was hit in the head with a ba­ton by one of two men who at­tacked him on the school com­pound. Po­lice said the men ap­proached the se­cu­ri­ty at about 2.40 pm on Wednes­day and asked to speak to the prin­ci­pal re­gard­ing a rec­om­men­da­tion. But when the men ap­proached the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice they pulled a ba­ton and dealt him a blow. Ramd­hanie was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mount Hope, where he was treat­ed and dis­charged.