Perlis police chief Noor Mushar Mohd said the mufti made an emergency call at 6.05am, and that firemen had managed to extinguish the fire on his Honda Accord car at his house in Persiaran Wawasan.

Mushar added that the engine compartment was completely razed, with the front and back windscreens shattered.

“We believe this could have been an act of mischief by someone, based on the broken rear windscreen where a bottle of petrol might have been hurled into it,” he said when contacted.

He added that investigators are working with a police forensic team to determine the cause of the fire.

Mushar said investigations revealed that two men on a motorcycle were believed to have hurled a Molotov cocktail at the mufti’s car, as they were spotted in the area on CCTV camera at 5.12am.

“At 3.30am, we saw a person filling a plastic container with fuel at a nearby petrol station,” he said. “He was spotted driving a car with a fake registration plate.”