After FEU stabbing case, U-Belt violence switches to Adamson

Two weeks after a female student of the University of Santo Tomas was stabbed inside the Far Eastern University campus in Manila, another student was wounded in a knife attack, this time at Adamson University.

Supt. Reynaldo Tumalad, commander of the Manila Police District’s Ermita station, identified the student as Kevin Roy Castro, 21, of Tondo, Manila.

Castro, an information technology student, was attacked by at least four fellow Adamson students on Wednesday, Tumalad said.

The victim sustained two stab wounds on his left arm and was rushed to Manila Medical Center and later transferred to San Juan de Dios hospital. He was discharged the following day.

The motive for the attack remained unclear, but a witness told investigators that Castro was with a group of students waiting for their professor when the suspects started to bully him. One of them later pulled out a knife and stabbed Castro.

Homicide charges would be filed against the suspects on Monday, Tumalad said.

The latest campus violence in Manila’s university belt took place days after UST IT student Joanne Lourdes Reyes, 20, was assaulted by a group of female FEU students on the latter’s campus.

Police later filed frustrated murder charges against Ma. Cristina Acosta, a senior nursing major, and five unidentified suspects in the Oct. 2 incident.

An investigation showed that Reyes was invited by another FEU student to watch a film festival’s awarding ceremony that day. The victim and her friend were in the hallway of the science building when the suspects sprayed them with tear gas and then stabbed Reyes, who was wearing a UST T-shirt. Nancy C. Carvajal