It was an act of revenge.
7 boys have been arrested in connection to the Pusat Tahfiz Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah fire that killed 23 people, including 21 students. The boys were rounded up after they were identified in CCTV footage from the Muslim Consumers Association of Malaysia office beside the school
Kuala Lumpur police chief Comm Datuk Amar Singh said that the boys, aged between 11 and 18, were picked up between 6pm on Friday (15th September) and 2:30am on Saturday (16th September). Comm Amar also confirmed that mocking between the students of the tahfiz school and the group of boys was what led to the revenge arson attack.
The Star Online quoted Comm Amar was saying, “Investigations revealed that their motive was to burn the school. Their basic intent was to cause mischief by fire. But maybe because of their age, they didn’t know that their actions would lead to the final result,” adding that there was a possibility that the suspects were “high” during the incident. Comm Amar explained that 2 gas cylinders were brought from the lower floor to the top floor of the building and were used to start the fire, which spread rapidly and took firefighters an hour to extinguish.
6 of the 7 suspects have tested positive for drugs and checked showed that 2 of them had been detained before, on charges of vehicle theft and rioting. The suspects were school dropouts who live nearby the tahfiz school area.
Comm Amar added that the 7 have been remanded for 7 days starting yesterday, and that the case was being investigated for murder, mischief by fire, sudden death and fire report. “With the arrests of the 7 suspects, we consider the case solved, this is a tragedy and I am happy we can solve it and can bring peace to the families,” he said.
Sources: The Star Online, Al Jazeera, China Press.
