RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ten­sion was high at the Bar­rack­pore East Sec­ondary yes­ter­day, as po­lice main­tained a vig­i­lant pres­ence at the school fol­low­ing Mon­day’s dis­rup­tive threat, which is still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the TTPS Cy­ber Crime Unit.

While teach­ers and aux­il­iary staff re­port­ed for du­ty at the school, the ma­jor­i­ty of stu­dents stayed away ex­cept for those un­der­tak­ing the Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion ex­am.

Along Pa­pourie Road, there was a height­ened sense of se­cu­ri­ty as po­lice of­fi­cers in a marked ve­hi­cle pa­trolled every few min­utes. Uni­formed of­fi­cers were al­so seen in­side the school, while se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers shied away from me­dia cam­eras.

An anx­ious par­ent re­count­ed her hour-long wait out­side the near­by Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion for clear­ance to en­ter the com­pound.

“It’s re­al­ly scary. I am wait­ing for him to do his ex­am and then I will pick him back up. We had to wait by the sta­tion un­til the teacher called and said we could come,” she re­vealed.

Speak­ing out­side the school com­pound, grand­fa­ther Kaz­im Ali told Guardian Me­dia he was wor­ried as he dropped his grand­daugh­ter at school to do her PE ex­am.

“I heard of the threats on the news on Mon­day night. I told my daugh­ter to­day not to send her to school to­day but then the school called and said she has ex­ams to­day and she has to come. So it is a chance we are tak­ing send­ing her to school be­cause the ex­am is very im­por­tant,” Ali re­marked.

Par­ent Par­batie Too­phanie said she too was con­cerned for her grand­chil­dren.

“I did not want to bring them but their moth­er said let’s take a chance. We are not hap­py about it. We are scared and fright­ened. This nev­er hap­pened in the Bar­rack­pore schools be­fore. Who­ev­er do­ing this should stop it be­cause it is not nice to do this to chil­dren,” Too­phanie said.

Ricky Ram­per­sad, who lives op­po­site the school, called for the ex­ams to be can­celled and the school to be shut down un­til the per­pe­tra­tor is caught.

“The po­lice are pa­trolling up and down but I think they should be sta­tion­ary,” Ram­per­sad said.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gadsy-Dol­ly yes­ter­day called on the pub­lic to as­sist in find­ing the one who was caus­ing tur­moil in the na­tion’s schools.

“As the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, as a par­ent, as a cit­i­zen, I want to strong­ly con­demn those peo­ple who are threat­en­ing the safe­ty of our chil­dren, our par­ents and our teach­ers. It is a most heinous crime to do this. If you know some­one who is do­ing this, please re­port it to the po­lice,” she ap­pealed.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said prin­ci­pals were al­so aware of pro­to­cols to fol­low in such sit­u­a­tions.

“Once a school re­ceives a threat they must re­port it to the po­lice and the min­istry,” she added.

Say­ing the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is kept abreast at all times, Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­lies heav­i­ly on the po­lice for ad­vice when a threat is lev­elled at a school.

She not­ed that all prin­ci­pals knew the muster points for their schools and every­one co­op­er­at­ed with the po­lice to en­sure that stu­dents were safe. The min­is­ter as­sured that all pre­cau­tions will be tak­en to en­sure that those writ­ing ex­ams in Bar­rack­pore are not un­du­ly dis­ad­van­taged.

On Mon­day, threats were sent to two teach­ers and the school via the school’s of­fi­cial email. The let­ter stat­ed: “I promise every sin­gle soul will be dealt with ac­cord­ing­ly, teach­ers and stu­dents will be dealt with in a painful way...I been plan­ning this since the new year. I am sure I will suc­ceed in mis­sion. I am com­ing for your school.”