SASEBO, Nagasaki Prefecture--A group of second-grade boys at a junior high school here ganged up on a first-year student and violently assaulted him by ramming an oil pump for waxing the gym’s floor into his anus.
The student was so traumatized by the attack he has been unable to return to school.
The Nagasaki prefectural police are investigating the incident, which occurred in mid-November, according to the city’s board of education, on suspicion of inflicting injury.
The boy was training for a club activity in the school’s gymnasium during a lunch break when he was attacked by the older children.
He suffered injuries to his anus and other parts of his body that took a week to heal. The pump was kept in the gym.
The student consulted the school nurse after the assault.
When the school checked with the second-year club members named by the boy, they all admitted their involvement in the incident, the school said.
School authorities held an assembly and parent-teacher meeting the same month to explain what had happened.
The Law for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying defines cases where bullying may have left a student with physical or mental scars as “serious situations.”
The Sasebo municipal board of education recognized the latest incident as such a case and established a third-party committee to investigate it.
Someone close to the student reportedly referred the matter to the prefectural police.
“It is regrettable that a bullying incident occurred that damaged a student both physically and mentally,” the School Education Division of the City Board of Education said in a statement.
“Our priority is to attend to the student’s current mental state and we will then cooperate with the school to deal sincerely with him and his parents,” it added.