Emotional friends paid tribute to star pupil Ajmol Alom on GCSE results day after he was stabbed to death the week before his outstanding results were released.
On a “bitter sweet” day at Langdon Park School, Poplar, pupils looked back fondly on the friend they called “the dad”.
Ajmol, 16, would have opened up an envelope containing eight A grades and three Bs had his life not tragically been cut short by last week’s knife attack.
His best friend, Imran Chowdhury, who knew Ajmol since the pair attended primary school together, said: “I took him as a brother – he was a really good friend.
“He really didn’t deserve what happened as he was such a good boy. Everyone looked up to him, and he would help us during exams. He was always there for everyone.”
Pupils remembered Ajmol as a keen sportsmen who was a model student and a devoted friend.
After Imran collected his results this morning, he said he was “really happy” for Ajmol, who achieved top grades in maths and all three sciences.
Other friends echoed the tributes on a morning filled with emotion, after it emerged that Ajmol had excelled in subjects including maths and the sciences. He was expected to go on to a top university to study medicine.
Another pupil, Pinar Yagmur, tearfully recalled persuading Ajmol to take the same A-levels as her so the pair could remain classmates next year.
“Everyone called him the dad,” she said, before collecting results of one A*, five As, four Bs and two Cs.
“Now I am going to carry on how it was planned before he went. He is safer than all of us now – that’s the only good thing.”
“He kept them out of trouble,” recalled another friend, Yazmin Khanom Maya. “He was always like the dad. He would be like ‘guys, come to my house’. He used to guide them, in a way.”
Headteacher Chris Dunne, who is retiring this summer, said the school had counsellors on hand to help pupils cope as they opened their results on Thursday.
“There’s no escaping the fact that it’s very bitter sweet,” he said. “It’s nice to see all these young people going on to the next stage, but they feel like me that Ajmol should have been here sharing the day with them.
“It’s important to say what happened last week is not the norm. That’s not the kind of area we live in. This is a hugely unusual occurrence, which is why this is so doubly shocking for people.
“Our school, our community, our country has just lost one of its brightest prospects and we are all rightly shocked and depressed by it.”
A 19-year-old man has appeared at the Old Bailey charged with Ajmol’s murder and was remanded in custody until a further hearing on November 4, but police are continuing to appeal for witnesses.
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