Nanyang Technological University(NTU) Stabbing Incident

Recently, there was a 21-year-old man, Mr David Hartanto Widjaja, claimed to be a whiz kid, who stabbed his supervisor for his final-year project, Professor Chan Kap Luk - a 45-year-old deputy director at the school's Biomedical Research Centre. His results had been dropping and he lost his scholarship last year. However, he kept this bad news from his family. This year, he missed by one or two marks to pass his final-year project. If he failed his project, he would have to retain in NTU for one more year. Therefore, he approached the professor, hoping that he would give him the one or two precious marks so that he would not have to retain a year in NTU as a result. Although Mr Widjaja approached the professor, the professor remained firm and refused to give him the precious marks. He feels that what he had given the student was what he deserved and consolation marks should not be given or it would be unfair to the other students. This gave Mr Widjaja even more stress, apart from the fact that he lost his scholarship.

Looking at this incident, I have a few questions in mind. They are the following. Why did the student not accept what he achieved and move on with life? Why must he try to get the additional marks? Why didn't he face the reality and just accept the fact that he had to retain a year? I am sure that there are some students who might have failed their projects too. If they could just move on with life, why couldn't he? Why did he commit suicide after stabbing the professor? There are many possibilities to these questions.

Firstly, he might have wanted those marks due to peer pressure. Most of his friends might have passed their final-year projects while he failed it. Thus, he tried to get those marks to pass and when he couldn't, he stabbed the professor and committed suicide.

Secondly, he might have wanted those marks as his parents' expectations might have been too high. This is evident when he did not even dare to tell his parents that he lost his scholarship, afraid to displease them. Therefore, he was unable to face the reality and get on with life, leading him to stabbing the professor and committing suicide.

Thirdly, he might have wanted those marks as he had already lost his scholarship and did not want to retain a year, with the fear that he might not be able to afford for the school fees for another year's studies as he did not inform his parents that he had lost his scholarship.

Finally, he might have committed suicide after stabbing the professor as he felt a wave of remorse overwhelming him. He regretted what he did and knew there was no turning back for him anymore, so he committed suicide.

These are only my opinions and there is nothing to prove why Mr Widjaja did these.

However, when he did these, he never thought of the consequences of these actions. People might view their parents as giving him too much pressure such that he does not even dare to tell them that he lost his scholarship and face the reality that he failed his final-year project and would have to retain a year in NTU. People might also view his parents as not being able to bring up their child well enough, such that he would stab the professor and commit suicide due to this small failure in his life. Moreover, his actions would definitely cause his parents to feel sad and depressed for him and this is definitely not being filial to his parents. His parents put in so much effort to bring him up, but just by committing suicide, all of his parents effort went down the drain.

To help students to be able to cope with their stress so that these dire consequences will not happen, schools have offered to render help by counselling the students after spotting the stress signals of the students. By counselling the students, they might be able to manage their stress better and not do such silly acts.

I feel that people should be able to face reality. If people cannot even face this type of small failures, how are they going to survive in their work life where they will face many problems and even failures like being fired by their bosses? Moreover, a failure does not mean failures forever, as long as you are willing to learn from your mistakes. I really wonder why an educated undergraduate like Mr Widjaja would do such a thing that would hurt the feelings of people who are close to him.

My whole purpose in writing this blog entry is because I feel that we should not follow in Mr Widjaja's footsteps and face our failures and problems bravely. Please heed my advice and do not do such a silly thing such as to commit suicide. It is definitely an unwise thing to do. Please think before you do and do what is right. Think of the consequences of your actions and by doing the right thing, you might be saving a lot of inconvenience. Thank you.

For more background information on this case, you might want to visit this website:http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/412450/1/.html


Professor Chan Kap Luk
Courtesy of: http://www.ntu.edu.sg/Pages/default.aspx