Nine-year-old boy hides in school toilet to outwit suspicious stranger

SUNGAI PETANI: A quick-thinking nine-year-old boy managed to outwit a stranger, who was believed to be trying to abduct him after school.

During the 6.30pm incident on Monday, the Primary Three pupil from SJK (C) Sin Min (A) here was said to have been approached by a man wearing a cap outside the school toilet after classes ended.

The man, whom the boy did not know, told him that he had been asked by his parents to pick him up from school.

However, sensing some­­­thing amiss, the boy, whose classes are in the afternoon session, rushed into the toilet and locked himself in a cubicle until he felt safe enough to come out. The boy’s father later came to fetch him.

SJK (C) Sin Min (A) headmaster, known as Lim, said he had spoken to the parents of the boy.

“The boy would always wait for his father to fetch him from school. The parents confirmed that they did not send anyone to pick him up that day,” he said.

The school, added Lim, took the matter seriously and urged the public not to believe rumours circulated on social media that a schoolboy had been abducted.

School board of governors director Lee Chie Chuan, 55, said the school only knew about the incident after the boy told his nursery teacher about it on Tuesday.

The teacher later informed the school. During a meeting yesterday, Lee said the school administration, the board and the parent-teacher association had decided to tighten security at the school.

Among the safety measures proposed were that parents were no longer allowed to enter the school premises to pick up their children and to increase the number of closed-circuit TV camera.

“We advise pupils waiting for their parents not to trust strangers who may try to coax them into following them,” he added.

Lee said no police report had been lodged at the moment because the school was still carrying out its own internal investigation into the matter. It is understood that SJK (C) Sin Min (A) shares the same compound with SJK (C) Sin Min (B).