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| Southeast Asia |
| Malaysia police arrest 7 boys over deadly school fire |
| 2017-09-17 |
[Al Jazeera] Seven boys have been enjuggedYouse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! in connection to a fire at a religious boarding school in Malaysia that killed 23 people, including 21 pupils, authorities said. Kuala Lumpur police chief Amar Singh said on Saturday that the boys, aged 11 to 18, were rounded up after they were identified in CCTV footage from a neighbouring building that showed them near the school the night of the fire. The pre-dawn blaze on Thursday at the three-story Darul Koran Ittifaqiyah "tahfiz" school blocked the lone exit to the dormitory on the top floor, trapping students behind barred windows. Two adults and 21 students, aged between 6 and 17, were killed. "From our investigation, the motive behind the mischief was due to a misunderstanding after the suspects and some tahfiz students mocked each other a few days before the fire," Singh said during a televised news conference. Singh said six of the seven suspects tested positive for drugs. Two of them were tossed into the calaboose before, one on charges of vehicle theft, another for rioting, he added. He said it is believed that two cooking gas tanks were brought up to the top floor and used to start the fire, which spread rapidly and took firefighters an hour to extinguish. |
| Posted by:Fred |