Placido Hilukilwa
THE Namibian police in the Oshikoto Region have admitted that officers slapped some “rebellious learners” at a local school, but the law enforcement agents dismissed claims that officers shaved the kids and then forced them to “eat the hair”.
Claims were made on social media recently that police officers, in collusion with teachers, shaved some learners and forced them to swallow the hair, while others were allegedly forced to use stones “to shave” their beards.
The incident happened at the Joseph Simaneka Asino Secondary School at Onayena at around 08:00 on Friday.
Commentators reacted angrily, going as far as demanding the summary dismissal of the officers involved.
The police reacted by launching an investigation and produced an internal report, seen by Informanté, that presents a totally different version.
According to the report, the incident followed the school principal’s request of police assistance to deal with a situation that was getting out of control.
“Learners were misbehaving, unruly, bullying other learners and possessing cellphones. Others had unacceptable hairstyles,” said the police.
Eleven officers were dispatched to the school where they conducted the search and confiscated an unspecified number of cellphones. Some male learners with “unacceptable hairstyles” were partially shaved by the officers while others were asked to cut shave themselves properly or to be shaved by fellow learners.
The police admitted that some learners were slapped for resisting and refusing to be searched, however, the claims that they were asked to “eat” or put their hair in their mouth, is utterly false.
Police officers joined the school authority, exhorting learners to abide by the rules and to cease the tendency of returning to school with unacceptable “funny hairstyles”.
