A 16-year-old boy promoting tomorrow's secondary school student's boycott was assaulted and injured by an elderly man in Tai Wai
Prince of Wales Hospital where Chow was taken after the attackA secondary school student was attacked on Thursday morning in Tai Wai by a hostile bystander. At the time of the attack, the student was promoting tomorrow’s class boycott for secondary students.
The unexpected assault left Chow Kar-ho, a 16-year-old student at Shatin Tsung Tsin Secondary School, a broken front tooth.
Kar-ho said the attack happened around 7.40am outside Exit F of Tai Wai MTR station on Mei Tin Road. Kar-ho was speaking through a loudspeaker while his five schoolmates were distributing flyers promoting tomorrow’s boycott.
He said an elderly man, who appeared to be in his 60s, came along and punched into the loudspeaker after observing Kar-ho and his peers for a while.
The loudspeaker cracked Kar-ho’s right front tooth.
“A woman passerby tried to stop the (attacker) from leaving and said she would call the police,” said Kar-ho, who sought treatment at Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin. “The (attacker) said ‘(go on,) you call, you call’, but then walked away.”
Police said they were looking for a thin man in connection with the attack. The man was thought to be about 60 year’s old and 1.6 metres tall. He was wearing a white vest, light colour pants and a pair of grey slippers.
“An initial investigation showed the attacker pushed the loudhailer that hit the boy’s mouth,” a police spokeswoman said.
Police said an initial examination showed that Kar-ho suffered mouth injuries with a cracked front tooth.
Kar-ho said he and his schoolmates had been promoting the boycott for several days at the same spot and every day there would be two to three hostile bystanders, who appeared to be living in the neighbourhood. They would show up and shout abuse at them. But he said he had never seen the attacker before.
“We were really surprised,” he said. “These people accuse us of being violent but it turns out that they’re the violent ones. So now who are the red guards and gangsters?
“I’m not afraid of them. In fact, their attack has proved that what we have been doing is effective.”
Sha Tin detectives are investigating the case.