A frustrated female student is at the center of police investigations for allegedly setting fire to a couple of classrooms after poor academic performance.
Sunday Standard investigations reveal that the second year student at the University of Botswana’s Faculty of Engineering and Technology is the prime suspect in the incident in which three classrooms were burned to ashes early this year.
The suspect is alleged to have performed badly in her academic work and decided to take out her frustrations on the university classrooms.
She allegedly went to a nearby filling station, only a few meters from the campus, and bought a few liters of diesel.
She then is said to have gone to the classrooms with the diesel at night and set the classrooms on fire before disappearing into the night.
Security guards were alerted by thick smoke and called the fire department who found the classrooms already consumed by the fire.
“We have completed our investigations in which (classrooms at) the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at the University of Botswana were set alight sometime early this year,” said Detective Superintendent Jameson Baakile of Urban Police Station in Gaborone.
Baakile said that damage is estimated to be in the region of over P1 million.
“We have already identified the culprit who caused the fire,” he said, adding that the suspect is aged between 18 and 20 years and comes from Mmopane Village near Gaborone and that she will be charged with arson.
“The investigations were complex and slow because we did not have clues but eventually information connecting the suspect to the arson emerged,” he said. “She will appear before the Extension 2 Magistrate Court in due course.”
