A teacher allegedly poked a student in his forehead with a ball pen for not been able to copy down an essay on time.
The incident took place at SK Puchong Jaya on Monday, which allegedly caused the forehead of standard four student, Timothy Deeran Shegar, to bleed. It is claimed that he was given no first aid until school was over.
Shegar was attending a Malay class conducted by his teacher, Islahuddin Ibrahim, at 8.45am and was given the task of copying down an essay read by the teacher.
However, Shegar did not manage to cope up with his teacher’s reading speed and failed to pass up his work.
Upon knowing this, Islahuddin allegedly chided the student severely before poking his forehead with a red ball pen and drew the nib close to his left eye.
“A few [periods] after, I realised my forehead was bleeding … Finally in the evening I got very sick and told my mum about it,” Shegar said when meeting reporters at the Human Rights Party (HRP) headquarters in Bangsar Utama today.
His mother, Bibi Yanem Suppiah Anthony (right), a kindergarten principal by profession, immediately brought the matter to the school’s headmaster the next morning.
She claimed the headmaster and teacher had initially agreed to issue a letter of apology to Shegar, but they changed their minds merely three hours later.
“When I went to the school again at 11am, the teacher withdrew his apology and said it went against his ethics to write the letter of apology (etika saya, saya tak boleh bagi surat),” she added.
“He claimed it is normal for a human being to get upset (biasa, saya geram, kita manusia),” said the mother who views the matter as abuse.
HRP: Result of Interlok
The HRP public relations head, who wanted to be identified only as Johnson, said this was a case of racial profiling against Indian students.
He pointed out that Shegar was discriminated against once, two months ago, when he was transferred from the first class to the last, for not completing his homework.
He added that the boy who scored all As in his exam was forced to be with stranger classmates for three days.
“It wouldn’t be the same if he was a Malay boy,” he claimed further. “All these [incidents have] happened after Interlok (the controversial text prescribed for Form Five students) was introduced.
“Today the fruit of Interlok is this young boy, is this what (Education Minister) Muhyiddin Yassin trying to preach to people?” he said.
HRP has sent Prime Minister Najib Razak and Muhyiddin both a letter of complaint on the issue.
“We also want the teacher to come out, explain the matter and apologise,” said Johnson (below, left).
CJMY
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