Tuesday 11 June 2013

Four Arrested Over London Islamic School Fire - Sky News

Four teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of arson in connection with a fire at an Islamic boarding school in south London.

Scotland Yard said two 17-year-olds and two 18-year-olds were detained late on Sunday night and taken to a south London police station, where they remain in custody.

When the fire took hold at around 11.50pm on Saturday, some 128 children and staff were inside the Darul Uloom school in Chislehurst in the London borough of Bromley.

They were evacuated and two boys were treated for smoke inhalation. About 10% of the building was damaged during the blaze, which was brought under control within an hour.

A policeman stands outside Darul Uloom School in Chislehurst
A police officer stands guard near the school on Sunday

The £3,000-a-year boarding school was established in 1988 with the purpose of producing "great scholars and Huffaz (people who have memorised the Koran) to preserve and transmit the eternal message of Allah".

School adviser Saiyed Mahmood said the school has been vandalised a number of times in the past and police were aware of the incidents.

The blaze happened just days after an Islamic centre in Muswell Hill in north London was burnt to the ground amid suggestions it was a racist attack.

The building was daubed with the letters "EDL", apparently the English Defence League.

Darul Uloom School
The school is in Foxbury Avenue

It prompted fears that the fire may have been a reprisal attack in the wake of the Woolwich murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.

Metropolitan Police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe has said London's communities are facing "difficult times" and sought to reassure the public by saying police are using their "full range of policing tactics to protect sites that might be vulnerable".

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