RIYADH, 17 April 2005 — A Pakistani father has called for an investigation into the tragic death of his 14-year-old son Mohammed Haris Shami, a student of the International Pakistan School, Riyadh (IPSR).
Haris was among a group of 50 students taken for a school picnic by teachers. He drowned in a pond at Marwaj Farm near Al-Dhelum area on Riyadh suburbs because of alleged negligence on the part of the teachers.
The father claims that the case is being hushed up by IPSR officials in the absence of any autopsy report. Sheikh Mohammed Mohsin Shami said, “No progress has been made in the investigation being conducted by the IPSR since Feb. 3, the day my son died”.
He says the teachers took the children for picnic without the authorization of the school’s principal.
In a letter addressed to Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Pakistani Ambassador Abdul Aziz Mirza, Shami accused school officials of not completing the investigation two months after the death of the child.
Fazle Wahid, IPSR principal, said the investigation will resume within a few days. “We are already working on this case,” he said.
Haris, a seventh grader at IPSR, was the fifth of Shami’s seven children. The family comes from Rawalpindi.
