Dorm-burning plan aborts: Student goes to collect petrol where he’d hidden it but finds teacher waiting for him

By , K24 Digital
On Wed, 24 Feb, 2021 16:26 | < 1 min read
The student was heard by a schoolmate on Sunday night saying he would torch two dormitories on Monday night. [PHOTO | FILE]
The student was heard by a schoolmate on Sunday night saying he would torch two dormitories on Monday night. [PHOTO | FILE]
The student was heard by a schoolmate on Sunday night saying he would torch two dormitories on Monday night. [PHOTO | FILE]

Police in Lugari, Kakamega County have arrested a Form Two student of St. Luke’s Lumakanda Boys’ High School, who had planned to burn two dormitories at the institution.

The learner had on Monday hidden a container of petrol in rugs and abandoned it behind the students’ toilets, with the motive of collecting the flammable substance later that day and setting alight two of the dormitories.

The student, who had plotted the arson with his friends, was heard by a schoolmate on Sunday night saying they would torch the dormitories on Monday night.

The learners who heard the suspect communicating his plan, thereafter, informed a teacher at the school, who alerted the institution’s principal.

“On Monday mid-day, the principal sent a teacher and the school captain to collect one litre of petrol that had been hidden in rugs and [abandoned] behind the students’ toilets,” says a police report filed at the Lumakanda Police Station.

“On collection of the petrol, [name withheld], a student of Form Two West had come to pick it, but found the teacher and the school captain at the scene. The suspect, thereafter, threatened [to harm] the school captain over the discovery.”

Police say the suspect had, on Saturday, sneaked out of school and returned on Sunday. It is suspected he acquired the petrol while outside the school compound.

The Form Two student was arrested on Monday and detained at Lumakanda Police Station, pending further legal action.

“The suspect, who pleaded guilty [to attempted arson accusation], said he had planned the crime alongside four others, including a Form Four student and three other Form Two students,” said the police report.

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