They put their bags on the desks and removed their hands from their pockets.
Fearfully watching a sniffer dog, the pupils stood still as it walked by, sniffing the desk and their pockets, looking for the telltale smell of drugs.
The women in police reflector jackets – some armed – searched the girls’ pockets, pulled up the legs of their pants and looked in their socks. The men took the boys.
By the time officers from the Jabulani police station and members of the local community policing forum had finished searching the pockets, desks and school bags of pupils from four Soweto schools, they had confiscated dagga in three of the schools, a porn movie, three knives, a packet of cigarettes, half a mandrax tablet and a dagga plant nestling among the shrubs at one of the schools.
It is believed some pupils might have been tipped off about the search, as they fled as soon as the police approached.
Wednesday’s operation was part of MEC for Community Safety Faith Mazibuko’s plan to turn some Soweto schools into places of learning and not places where children are drunk, high and disrupt teaching.
“Teachers also need to be safe, therefore we don’t need a situation where children will be high in class. The situation is Soweto is quite bad; you find children eating scones or using lip balm laced with dagga,” said Mazibuko.
At a school in Jabulani, hidden inside school bags, police uncovered a hard-core porn movie, lip balm laced with dagga, dagga in packets, three knives and a box of cigarettes.
A cellphone with porn images was also confiscated. A teenage girl’s strawberry-flavoured lip balm was found to have been mixed with dagga.
Hidden among shrubs on the property, police found a dagga plant.
The acting principal said dagga was a big problem at her school, with some girls smoking it in the toilets.
A 19-year-old Grade 11 boy said he had been smoking dagga since he was 13.
He claims he stopped two months ago because he would just want to sleep and was unable to concentrate when he got to school.
“Your eyes become red and your fingertips change colour,” he said.
A boy who had dagga in his bag led the police to the Snake Park squatter camp a few kilometres from the school and pointed out his dealer. A man and his wife were arrested.
Any pupils found with offending goods will be charged, but won’t be prosecuted criminally. They will instead be put on a diversion programme.