Imagine that you are an eight-year-old boy in a Malaysian school and picture the following scenario.

You are surrounded by a gang of five older boys and ordered to snip off your tongue or face a beating. What would you do?

Perhaps your decision depends on your previous experience with them. If you have received a severe thrashing from these boys before, you’ll be asking yourself: “Which would be worse? The beating or the self-harm?”

Your mind drifts to the past, when you complained about being bullied. Your teachers didn’t take you seriously. They told you that it was just normal, playful, playground banter. They told you to “get on with it”, “toughen yourself” and so on. You tried, but the bullying continued.

But perhaps the teachers listened to you and hauled the bullies in for questioning. Of course, they would deny doing what you accused them of doing. Wouldn’t you do the same if you had done something wrong?

Now that you have complained about them, the bullies take revenge by intensifying the oppression. They hurt you in places where the bruises would not show, such as blows to the torso.

Only a foolish bully would beat you in the face, where your bruises would easily show. Often, the beating would be accompanied with obscene remarks. Or they could make you perform degrading sex acts. Or take your pocket money, use up your phone credit, or eat the cake you brought to school for break time. They could copy your homework or force you to carry their school bags. There are endless ways a bully could make your life miserable.

When your complaints to the teachers prove unsuccessful, you tell your parents. They take the case up with the school. The bullies have to be questioned again. They deny tormenting you, and no one is punished.

Because you don’t receive any support from those who should have come to your aid, you decide to suffer in silence. It’s better to give in to them than to be beaten to a pulp.

You suggest that your parents request a transfer to another school. To your horror, you find that the formalities will take months. So you have to suffer the bullies until then. You also wonder if the request will be approved.

While you wait for the outcome of the request, your health deteriorates, your mental state declines, your weight drops, you can’t sleep and your school work is affected. You feign sickness, but in time, you actually fall ill because the stress is too great. You are miserable, and you withdraw from company.

On March 25, eight-year-old Muhammad Alif Shukran Alias alleged that five boys from Year Three had ganged up on him and forced him to cut his own tongue. He said the perpetrators wore masks to hide their identities.

While a lesson was in progress, he snipped at the tip of his tongue and was rushed to hospital. There was a public outcry. His mother demanded that he be transferred from the school, saying she was fed up with the trauma her son was facing.

The head of the Parents-Teachers Association denied unsubstantiated reports that parents and students had complained about rampant bullying in the school.

A week later, police concluded that there was no evidence to support Alif’s story. They said he had played with a sharp object belonging to a friend before using it on his tongue. They said the incident happened in class and not in a toilet, as alleged.

The police dismissed Alif’s story and said he had not been bullied.

When all the hue and cry has died down, Alif will have to return to the same school.

Whom do you believe? If you were his parents, what would be your reaction?

Mariam Mokhtar is an FMT columnist.