Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Police in Bomet have arrested three students suspected to be behind the torching of a dormitory at Kabungut Boys’ High School on Saturday night.

Bomet Central sub county police Commander Musa Imamai said two are aged 17 years while the other one is 18 years.

The suspects, he added, are Form Three students.

Speaking to People Daily, Imamai said investigations have shown that the fire started from a mattress in the dormitory before engulfing a section of the building.

The trio, he noted, are being held at the Bomet Police Station and will help police in the investigations.

The fires at the dormitories in Kabungut and Chebunyo boys’ High Schools in Bomet Central and Chepalungu respectively started just an hour after the other and burnt dormitories.

This brings to three the number of schools, which have been torched so far in a span of two weeks even as such cases continue to rise across the country.

Two weeks ago a dormitory at Kimulot Boys’ School in Konoin went up in flames. 

Five suspects were arrested in connection to it but they are, however, yet to be arraigned to court.

In the first incident at Kabungut, the 7:30 pm fire started when the students were in their classrooms for the usual prep.

It took the joint efforts of the county disaster team and members of the public who responded swiftly to contain the fierce fire from consuming the entire part of the 100ft structure. The dormitory houses up to 100 students.

Personal belongings of students residing in the burnt section of the dormitory could not be salvaged.

At the Chebunyo School, nothing was salvaged in the 9pm fire which burnt down a dormitory housing at least 90 students.

Among the property destroyed in the building are mattresses, boxes and other belongings of at least 90 students.

Sub county Police Commander Nelson Masai said even though they suspect the fire may have been ignited by electricity; they are investigating to know, “if anyone tampered with it”.

Meanwhile, Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has asked the government to consider scrapping the component of boarding in all basic learning institutions across the country as a way of addressing the rampant unrest.