KOTA KINABALU, Sept 10 — The Coroner's Court was told that the public telephones at two dormitory blocks of SMK Agama Tun Datu Mustapha in Papar were closed for two days starting July 16, following the tragic incident involving the late Zara Qairina Mahathir.
This was revealed by the school's security guard Linah Mansoding @ Jaliha, 65, when answering questions from lawyer Shahlan Jufri, representing Zara's family, on the fifth day of the inquest proceedings into the teenager's death.
Shahlan: Madam, may I know how the students there contact their parents?
Linah: "They use public telephones...some also borrow(ed) my phone".
Shahlan: Do they use coins?
Linah: "No... they use cards. If there is no balance on the card, they have to use the guard's mobile phone.
Shahlan: In the two days after July 16, were the students at the school able to contact their parents?
Linah: The public phones were closed for two days, two nights…because they were afraid that the children would call their parents.
Shahlan: How can public phones be closed?
Linah: The switch is closed.
Shahlan: Who closed them?
Linah: The chief warden ordered the phones closed.
Earlier, the witness told the court she found Zara lying on her back in a drain, unconscious and bleeding from the neck, at 3am on July 16.
At the end of today's proceedings, Coroner Judge Amir Shah Amir Hassan announced that he, along with the prosecution team, lawyers and pathologist Dr Jessie Hiu, would visit the school at 9.30am tomorrow.
However, media practitioners will not be allowed to enter the school premises during the visit. The inquest proceedings would resume in court after the visit.
Zara died on July 17 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital I in Kota Kinabalu, where she had been admitted a day earlier after being found unconscious in a drain near her school hostel in Papar at 4am.
On August 8, the Attorney-General’s Chambers ordered her remains to be exhumed for a post-mortem, before announcing an inquest into her death on August 13.
