The night ninjas attacked boy, 14

FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD Nur Muhammad is afraid of the dark.

He was not always like this. It all changed three weeks ago, the night the “ninja squads” came.

The Muslim boarding school student in Banyuwangi was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Four ninjas entered the school at night in an attempt to kill his teacher. Nur was then in the kitchen warming up nasi goreng – fried rice – which he had bought from a nearby food stall earlier in the day.

“Four men wearing masks entered the kitchen and started accusing me of foiling their plans to kill my teacher,” the frail-looking boy said.

“They all wore masks and carried parangs. They did not speak our local dialect. One of them charged at me and started strangling me. I tried to ward off the attack and fell down. The others joined in and started kicking me. I just screamed and screamed like I never did before.”

His cries for help attracted the attention of his friends. When they got to the kitchen the Ninjas had already disappeared. Nur was warded in a local hospital for treatment and discharged a few days later.

But the scars of the attack remain – physically and psychologically. He is scared of the dark and needs friends to accompany him whenever he goes out in the evenings.

His teacher Mohammad Khoil said the school, which has about 500 students, is now on alert 24 hours: “There is no sense of security now. This would never have happened a year ago. Now people can just kill and terrorise others and get away with it.”