Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is vow­ing to purge schools of vi­o­lence as she re­peat­ed her warn­ing that there will be se­ri­ous con­se­quences for crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.

She made the re­marks hours af­ter five fe­male stu­dents from three sec­ondary schools were charged wtih as­sault oc­cas­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm in con­nec­tion with the beat­ing of a 15-year-old Holy Faith Con­vent stu­dent on June 10.

Sev­er­al videos, which went vi­ral af­ter be­ing record­ed on stu­dents’ cell­phones, showed the vic­tim be­ing beat­en in front of the school in Cou­va by a group of young girls who were bare­foot­ed and not in uni­form. The vic­tim had to seek med­ical treat­ment af­ter sus­tain­ing in­juries.