COLD, calculated and premeditated – those seem to be the observations regarding the assailant in the latest school stabbing incident.
This encapsulated the shocking revelation that a Form 3 pupil purportedly from SMK Bandar Banting was stabbed 16 times by a fellow schoolmate who had been suspended from school prior to the incident. The assailant has been arrested but no motive has yet to be established.
However, it is the chilling images and clips showing the alleged perpetrator cooly and calmy walking through the school corridors holding a Rambo knife post-stabbing that has a concerned Malaysian public asking serious questions.
The similarities with the earlier stabbing case involving the fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old female student in a Petaling Jaya school in October last year are aplenty.
The 14-year-old alleged killer was also filmed post-assault to be cooly walking the corridors of his school, calmly sipping on a bottle of water as if nothing untoward had occurred.
The lack of emotions from both alleged assailants have enraged many Malaysians who are asking what has led to such sociopathic teenagers prowling the once safe halls of local schools.
The latest incident has obviously been making the rounds on social media with well-known education influencer and former teacher Mohd Fadli Salleh (also known as Cikgu Fadli) comparing both horrific attacks.
In so doing, he could not help alluding to the fact that both alleged perpetrators seem to be completely numb and displayed zero emotions or remorse from their recently committed atrocities.
“These two incidents cannot be taken lightly. We need to study from various angles why they happened in order to come up with a solution,” pointed out the distressed former teacher of SK Gombak 1.
The post has generated 2.4K likes, 288 comments and 148 shares at time of publication, denoting this latest school stabbing incident has sparked outrage, confusion and concern, not least to parents who no longer view schools as safe haven for their children.
The issue of bullying was on the minds of quite a few commenters. One surmised that it is because school authorities refuse or aren’t allowed to take disciplinary action against bullies that pushes the victims to take matters into their own hands.
One retired teacher was in no doubt as to the declining standards of discipline in Malaysian halls of learning – SISPA.
It was argued that this system of complaints was designed to “kill off the careers of teachers”, insinuating that it left teachers open to too much criticism when trying to do their jobs.
Editor’s Note: The Integrated Complaints Management System a.k.a. SISPA is an official online platform created by the government for the public to submit feedback.
The lack of discipline both at home and in schools was a recurring theme. Some concerned commenters urged the authorities to “not follow western practices” and to re-introduce corporal punishment in schools.
This would empower teachers and allow them to properly discipline kids.
Another distressed Malaysian opined that the approach needs to be two-fold. Firstly, as pointed out by many others, allow teachers to punish errant students.
It was also recommended that retired disciplinarians be asked to be observers in schools. Secondly, she mooted the return of exams such as UPSR and PMR to focus students’ minds. Without exams, school is seen by pupils as a pointless exercise, leading to wayward minds.
It has been rumoured that the latest incident was the result of bullying and that the stabber had previously shown red flags that she may have been a victim and was now taking matters into her own hand.
If this was indeed true, some commenters asked why was the victim of bullying (who had allegedly tried leaping off a building in a suicide attempt) not offered any help when red flags were obvious.
The issue of bullying is obviously being seen as a serious problem in domestic education institutions.
It is seen as the root cause for a number of cases including the purported suicide of 13-year-old Zara Qairina Mahathir in a Sabah religious school and now, the latest stabbing incident in Banting.
Whatever the reasons, this latest development is extremely disconcerting, hence some very serious soul-searching needs to be done not just by the government and school administrators but also by parents.
If difficult questions are not asked and addressed, not least concerning the allegations of bullying being the spark that lit the fire, then society risks being caught in a continuous loop of repeating school violence.
How many more incidents need to take place before meaningful action is taken? – July 7, 2026
