Gayaza fire: ISO arrests two suspects
Mar 11, 2020
The students claimed to have seen a man getting out of the dormitory and later walked towards the football pitch within the school compound.
SCHOOL FIRES
KAMPALA - Security investigators have arrested two suspects in connection with the fire that gutted the dormitory of Gayaza High school.
KAMPALA - Security investigators have arrested two suspects in connection with the fire that gutted the dormitory of Gayaza High school.
The arrest followed a tip-off by three students who are said to have been in the dormitory when the fire started.
The students claimed to have seen a man getting out of the dormitory and later walked towards the football pitch within the school compound.
The fire that burnt the first dormitory on Friday (Corby) was suspected to be from electricity.
Internal Security Organisation director Col Frank Kaka Bagyenda confirmed the arrest of two people.
He said the arrested are one Jonathan Mayanja from Kawempe, and Abdul Lukwago who was got from Makindye. Lukwago and Mayanja are said to be suspected criminals who have been arrested on several occasions in connection with robberies.
It is alleged that after the fire, the District Internal Security Officer in Kasangati sent spies to Gayaza and they got information from students who said there was a man who was seen moving out of the dormitory that caught fire.
The investigators further talked to residents near the school and they also claimed to have seen two suspicious men who were not area residents.
According to the available information the two, Lukwago and Mayanja were in Gayaza by the time of the fire.
Kaka said the suspects had not yet recorded statements, however, they will need to explain what they were doing in Gayaza at the time of the fire and why they moved in and out of the school.
Kaka also said they are investigating the connection Mayanja, Lukwago, and their other colleagues have with the fire.
The Officer in Charge of Kasangati Police Station, Edison Muhangi, said initially they thought the cause of the fire was electricity but later decided to widen their investigations to look at other possible causes.
Investigators, however, said they have been challenged because the school has no CCTV cameras yet for some time school proprietors and business owners in busy places have been urged to install security cameras.
Gayaza High School is located on 107 acres and yet there are no cameras. Residents and other people walk through Gayaza land as they wish.
School security guards said they find difficulties securing such a very big school yet it is not fenced off. They said on many occasions they arrested people trespassing though none seemed to have ill intentions.
Change of guards
Muhangi said they had received complaints on several occasions that the school never wanted male security personnel in preference for women since it is a girls' school.
He said they changed and gave them women.
Daniel Mukasa Ddamulira, the chairman of the reconstruction committee of the burnt dormitory, said they had already held a meeting to start work.
They chose three committees, including finance, information and that of professionals.