SURVIVORS of the fire at a tahfiz school in Kg Datuk Keramat last year recall strange “signs” that preceded the tragedy, which killed 23 people on September 14.

Muhd Syamin Che Azmi, 19, said students would normally recite Quranic verses together before bedtime. But the night before the predawn fire, everyone was strangely quiet, he said.

“One of my friends who died, Muhammad Fahmie Abdullah, was quiet and moody for two or three days before the fire,” Syamin told The Malaysian Insight at a special prayer ceremony for the victims over the weekend.

He said he was one of the first to be aware of the fire. He remembered rushing out with 12 others, but two of them did not make it.

Another survivor, Muhd Akif Zamir Zahid, 19, said he was having his usual nightly chat with his closest friend, not knowing it would be the last time he would ever speak to Muhd Taufik Hidayat Norazizan.

They were talking for 20 minutes, and of all things, were having a conversation about death.

“I asked him, if I were to die in an accident, would he be sad? He said, of course, as we had been such good friends.

“I didn’t know he would go first.”

Around 5am, Akif heard his mother’s voice shouting his name from outside the building, telling him to wake up because the school was on fire.

As people scrambled to run outside, he said he remembered asking others, “Where is Taufik?”.

“They said he was still upstairs. I couldn’t believe he didn’t make it.”

Akif said a boy who was later arrested as a suspect had behaved strangely as the fire raged.

“I remember telling him, doesn’t this feel like someone has betrayed us? But he ran away from me. A few days after the fire, I bumped into him and called out to him, but he avoided me and ran off.”

Investigators identified arson as the cause of the fire, aided by a gas cylinder that caused the flames to spread rapidly.

Seven youths, aged between 11 and 18, were arrested, and two of them, aged 16, are being tried for murder.

Principal Mohd Zahid Mahmood said the tragedy affected him badly, and he even thought about shutting down the school.

Grappling with regret and guilt, he questioned the fate of the boys if he had not opened the school.

“I was so sad. I even wondered why I opened a tahfiz centre. I was the one who brought them to study here. If I had not opened the centre, they wouldn’t have died.”

The school now operates in its own building, which had been undergoing renovations at the time of the fire.

The temporary premises then had fire hazards and insufficient exit routes, things that were looked into when constructing the new four-storey building, which has closed-circuit television monitoring, fire extinguishers and multiple exits on all floors. – September 17, 2018.