While the memory of clock boy Ahmed Mohammad who was locked up for bringing an alleged hoax bomb to school in US is still fresh, a not so dissimilar incident has been reported from Texas, US, where a 12-year-old Sikh boy was put in juvenile detention for three days after a classmate accused him of having a bomb.
The Dallas Morning News reported that the incident was actually a prank played by one of the classmates of 12-year-old seventh-grader Armaan Singh. Police said Armaan, a student of Nichols Junior High School in Arlington, was arrested on last Friday on the charge of making a “terroristic threat” however he told police he was only joking when he told a classmate he had a bomb in his backpack.
“People have got to learn they cannot make these types of threats, which cause alarm, which cause evacuations,” police spokesman Lt. Christopher Cook told TDMN “Just because you say it’s a joke, it doesn’t get you out of trouble.”
But Armaan’s family doesn’t agree with the police version and say it was actually a classmate of Armaan who was behind the prank. Armaan was released on Monday.
The ordeal of the 12-year-old boy, a child with history of heart ailments, was brought to fore by a gripping Facebook post by one of his cousins. The post describing the false threat perception and harassment of the child has gone viral.
Here’s the Facebook post
This goofball on the left in this picture is my 12 year old cousin, Armaan Singh Sarai. He was born and raised in Texas…
Posted by Ginee Haer on Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Interestingly, school authorities have released little information about what led to the arrest of the boy and what action have they taken up against the bully who accused Armaan of carrying a bomb.
Feature image source: Facebook