In an interview with The Star, M Selvaraja said his son, S Pravin, had told him that a group of schoolboys who were sniffing glue had attacked him and forced him to swallow some liquid. After that, they had thrown him into a stream, Pravin told his father.
However, Selvaraja told the daily that he did not believe his son as Pravin had previously been involved in glue-sniffing himself.
“I actually stopped my son from going to school in late March as he used to mix with boys who smoked as well as sniffed glue,” he was quoted as saying.
Pravin died two days ago after being hospitalised at Tuanku Jaafar Hospital in Seremban last Thursday. His mother had initially taken him to a clinic in Nilai, where the family stays, after he began vomiting and complaining of abdominal pains.
While in hospital, the boy told police that the incident had happened a day earlier when the youths held him down before forcing him to drink the liquid, according to Nilai OCPD Supt Zaludin Zaldino.
According to Pravin, the boys had been angry with him because he had scolded them for sniffing glue.
Selvaraja told The Star that Pravin was unable to speak while in hospital as his throat was swollen. However, he said his son had written an account of the incident on a piece of paper, which he gave to the police when they came to record his statement.
The report also quoted Zaludin as saying police had managed to get some leads on the attack.