Our little star is safe and well!

Reporter: KAREN DOHERTY
Date online: 17 March 2010

THREE deafening cheers rang out as classmates of kidnapped Rushcroft Primary School pupil Sahil Saeed celebrated his safe release.

Delighted head teacher Jane Sheridan held a special assembly to tell around 200 pupils that one of their “stars” had been found.

Sahil’s tearful aunt Nabila Naheed, who has two sons at the Shaw school, was among the staff who attended the event.

She is a dinner lady at Rushcroft and promised to dish up the five-year-old’s favourite baked potatoes and sweetcorn when he returns to lessons. A party is also planned to welcome him back.

Pupils sang the moving “Be a Friend” before Mrs Sheridan said: “Two weeks ago we had some sad news in school. I had to tell you that one of our stars was missing, that Sahil had gone missing and I did not know where he was.

“I told you that somewhere Sahil would be shining and that people would notice him. Some of you knew, but I can tell you that our star has been found. Our friend’s back — he’s safe and well.”

Mrs Sheridan received a text from her secretary early yesterday telling her the news which she then confirmed with Sahil’s family.

She described the pupils as “screaming happy” and told the Evening Chronicle: “There was a big group of Year 6 pupils waiting for me outside my office wanting to know if I had heard the news and could I confirm anything.

“When I was able to tell them I had spoken to the family they were just ecstatic and hugging each other, and the girls started crying.”

But she also talked about how the ordeal had affected pupils, especially the younger children, adding: “A lot of the children did not feel safe.

“It’s one of their classmates; they can’t distinguish between Shaw and Pakistan. To them he was there, he went to bed, in the morning he wasn’t there and he had been kidnapped.

“Some of our children were very confused by that.”