'Charge cops who quizzed SK Seri Pristana pupils'

MIC director of strategy S Vell Paari has taken the police to task for allegedly questioning the pupils of SK Seri Pristana without the approval or supervision of their parents.

In a statement today, Vell Paari (left) said that several parents had informed him about this.

The MIC leader also lambasted the police for detaining a parent, who was alleged to have threatened the headmaster of the primary school.
                    
"On whose authority did the police enter the school premises to record statements from the pupils? How could they talk to the students without the consent of their parents?
 
"For subjecting these children to the stress of being questioned without the presence of their parents, these police officers should be charged with criminal intimidation," he said.

Vell Paari said he had informed Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Paul Low about the matter and called on him to raise it with the cabinet.

"While we mourn about children perishing in wars abroad, our children here are being victimised by the very people tasked with protecting and educating them.

"If I was to use one word to describe this episode, it would be 'shameful'," he added.

On the parent's arrest, Vell Paari questioned the need for the police to go to his house at midnight, as if he was a dangerous criminal.

The MIC leader said while the police had every right to investigate a report filed by the headmaster against the parent, he questioned the status of the police investigation with regard to the reports filed by the parents against the headmaster.

"Was there an investigation?" he asked.

Yesterday, itreported that Seri Pristana headmaster Mohd Nasir Mohd Noor picked out a parent from a police line-up as the man who had allegedly threatened him.

Nasir had fingered V Kumaresan, 32, as the culprit.

He was arrested and then released on police bail at about 4.45pm and was expected to be charged with criminal intimidation on Sept 9.

Kumaresan had also told the media that the police came looking for him last Friday at about midnight.

SK Seri Pristana landed in the limelight after photographs showing non-Muslim students eating in the shower room emerged on Facebook.