Just several links about David

Reporting is taking a lot of time and concentration, especially if we are taking the journalistic ethical code. I was really interested in the case of David Hartanto Widjaja, 21, an Indonesian bright student who was found dead after (accused of) stabbing his associate professor at NTU, Singapore (read Channelnewsasia)

I knew the news from the local television here, then through mailing lists. Loosing a bright and intelligent student like David is something that would arouse our curiosity. He was blessed with intelligent and also a scholarship, then why he had to end up that way?

Receiving a scholarship from a well known foreign university is not always like jumping into heaven, another student who receive scholarship from the same University shared her story here. Unfortunately it is not in English. She did not know David, but she told a story about the difficulties that perhaps all those scholarship receiver had to face. She also revealed that there were other students that became the victim of this education process, one ended up in the mental hospital, the other one was making unsuccessful suicide.

Another blog was asking if David was a victim or a suspect? Family has doubted the Singapore's newspaper story.

It is human for family to doubt that such a bright boy stabbed his professor then committed a suicide. I do not know him, his family, or even his university, but as a mother it took my concern. He came from BPK Penabur, an (private) Indonesian senior high school with a high level of competition. So, naturally we expect him to be ready to run well in a tighter competition abroad. Coming from BPK Penabur also indicate that he came from at least middle level of financial family support, which should not make his scholarship termination could force him into a murderer and suicidal action...especially when he was already in his final year. Chinese Indonesian family usually helped each other in term of education. Even if his nuclear family can't support him, there should be another way to finance that final year. Yet, youngsters sometimes are unpredictable. Stressful situation are existed in any campus...the South Korean who shot guns and made us lost one Indonesian scholar was another case that came two years ago from the States.

Another story came in through mailing list, it is from Singapore Enquirer, this time about the second suicide from NTU, an NTU officer was found hanged in the balcony of his apartment. It came less than a week after David's incident. And he was also from the Division of Information at the School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (EEE), although he worked as the University infocomm project officer while David was only a student.

Professor Chan Kap Luk has survived the stabbing, he is the only one who know the true story about David...