JEDDAH: A fire at a secondary school in the town of Turbah on Monday has gutted an office where students’ exam papers were being stored.
Civil Defense firefighters put out the blaze at Al-Hashraj school, 400 km east of Jeddah, which destroyed the computer storing the results from the half-yearly exams as well as the shelves holding the answer sheets.
The school principal told police he suspected students were behind the fire, which happened at midnight. He added they might have wanted to erase all records of the results.
However, no clues about the arsonists were found at the scene.
“The locks of the school gate were not broken but some abusive words were scribbled on classroom desks,” a source told Arab News.
Turbah police spokesman Brig. Hussein Al-Ebadi said officers have started an investigation in coordination with the Education Department’s Turbah branch.
A source at the department told Arab News that if the arsonists’ intention was to erase any record of their results they would be disappointed as the principal keeps copies of all answer sheets in his office.
