Soldiers Brutalise Students Of Wa Islamic School

Two students of the Islamic Senior High School in Wa were admitted to hospital yesterday following a high-handed military action to quell a stand-off between the students and the school authorities.

The students, a male and a female, were the main casualties of an apparent simultaneous police and military action to break the front of the students, as their peaceful protest degenerated into chaos.

The soldiers allegedly invaded the girls’ dormitory and started beating the riotous students following a call to the police to go to the school and restore order.

The two students were being treated and monitored at the Islamic Hospital in Wa as of press time yesterday, hospital sources told the Daily Graphic.

An eyewitness said it took some guts by the Deputy Crime Officer of the Upper West Regional Police Command, Assistant Superintendent of Police Mr George Asare, to calm the military personnel who had gone into action without the knowledge of the police.

School activities returned to normal later after the Headmaster, Mr Tampouri Abdul-Salaam Dramani, Mr Asare and the President of the Students Representative Council (SRC), Master Alidu Waah Saani, had addressed the students in turns on the compound.

Master Saani, who expressed surprise at the action of the military, said the students had raised questions with the school authorities over certain items on the termly bills and demanded that issues relating to aspects of ICT in particular be scrapped.

He said what started as a minor agitation at prep time last Wednesday night became a full blown stand-off with the school administration when some students refused to allow the headmaster to address the year groups in batches.

Rather, he said, the students asked that the headmaster address them collectively in order not to break their front.

Mr Dramani said the police were called in to restore order when it became apparent that the stand-off was degenerating into a serious crisis, especially when some of the students who had refused to take breakfast turned on their fellow students who had gone to the dining hall to eat.