Thirty-one students of the Nalerigu Senior High School (NASS) in the Northern Region have been arrested by the police for their alleged involvement in a riot in the school at the weekend.
The students in their insurrection vandalised school properties including a newly constructed Information and Communication Technology (ICT) laboratory, headmaster’s bungalow, girls’ dormitory, plastic chairs, and the windscreens of five vehicles.
They also stole 90 computers from the school’s ICT lab.
The students had proposed to be allowed to organise an entertainment show to end the term but the headmaster, Mr Adam Martin refused to grant them permission to go ahead with the show.
The Northern Regional Police Public Relations Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), Ebenezer Tetteh told Graphic Online’s correspondents that on Saturday evening, August 1, 2015 some of the students went to the headmaster to ask for permission to organise an entertainment show known popularly in the school as “Closing Jams” to mark the end of the term.
But the headmaster was said to have turned down the request with an explanation that it was too late in the evening and that some students were learning towards their examination.
The headmaster’s explanation, the police said did not go down well with the students who went to their dormitories and cut the power supply to the school.
They were said to have mobilised themselves and attacked the headmaster’s bungalow, destroying the windscreens of five vehicles belonging to the school also attacked the girls’ dormitory as the punishment for the female students refusal to join the riot.
According to the police, the headmaster had to be whisked away by one of the teachers on his motor bike to escape any unforeseen mayhem.
Mr Tetteh said 31 of the students were arrested on Sunday, August 2, a day after the incident in the school and were in police custody assisting with investigations.
He explained that two out of the 31 had been charged with stealing while the rest had been charged with rioting and causing unlawful damage and harm.
He said the police would soon process the other students for court. Some of the stolen computers, Mr Tetteh explained, had been retrieved.
Meanwhile, the school has been closed down.