“For the time being, the probe is centred on sudden death and fire, unless there are new leads,” said Mohammad Fuzi Harun in his first press conference as the inspector-general of police.
Fuzi said police would wait for post-mortem reports as well as the fire department’s forensics report on the pre-dawn blaze, which ripped through the top floor of the Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah private boarding school in Datuk Keramat.
“We may get something new from the post-mortem and the fire department reports which would give us some indication on how to proceed with the probe into the tragedy that has occurred,” he told reporters after witnessing a ceremony to hand over duties to the new directors of the Special Branch, Narcotics Department and Criminal Investigation Department.
Yesterday, Kuala Lumpur fire department chief Khirudin Drahman said chemical traces had been found around the area, suggesting that the incident could be an act of arson.
But Fuzi said it was too early to confirm anything.
“We will look at all angles,” he said, adding that police would question school authorities as well as survivors.
“They are all being investigated.”
The incident is the country’s worst fire disaster in the past 20 years, and has renewed a debate on the state of privately-run Islamic schools in the country, five months after the death of an 11-year-old tahfiz student in Johor triggered nationwide outrage.
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