Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath says in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing in­to the cause of a fire at Cara­pichaima West Sec­ondary School, even as al­le­ga­tions have sur­faced that Form Five stu­dents may have been in­volved.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Dowlath said the mat­ter is un­der ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion and there is no ev­i­dence as yet about stu­dent in­volve­ment. He said the in­ci­dent oc­curred on Mon­day when smoke was first de­tect­ed at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.50 pm on the top floor of the Form Five build­ing block.

Emer­gency pro­to­cols were im­me­di­ate­ly ac­ti­vat­ed, and by 1.55 pm, all stu­dents and staff had been safe­ly evac­u­at­ed to a des­ig­nat­ed muster point. Dr Dowlath said at the time of the in­ci­dent, there were 42 teach­ers and 103 stu­dents on the com­pound. No in­juries or fa­tal­i­ties were re­port­ed, al­though am­bu­lance ser­vices re­mained on stand­by as a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure.