KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 21 — The director of a construction machinery sales and repair company in Rawang was among eight men arrested for their alleged involvement in the Sungai Selangor pollution that affected more than a million accounts, said Selangor police.
Selangor state police Criminal Investigations Department chief Senior Assistant Commissioner Datuk Fadzil Ahmat said the arrests were made this morning in Rawang at around 11.30am.
Those arrested include the 31-year-old director, his 62-year-old father, and six staff working for the company consisting of two locals and four foreign workers from Nepal, Pakistan and Myanmar.
“All of them will be remanded on October 22 at the Selayang Court,” Fadzil said in a statement today.
He said the case is being investigated under Section 430 of the Penal Code which relates to mischief committed that causes a diminution of the supply of water.
Elaborating on the investigations, Fadzil said the actual contamination which later caused an odour in the water, was detected at 12.38am on October 19, forcing the closure of Air Selangor’s water treatment plants.
“Preliminary investigations found that an odour that was detected stopped at a stream along Sungai Gong, which is suspected to have originated from a company repairing and selling construction machinery,” he explained.
The pollution on early Monday morning led to the taps of some 1,196,457 accounts in 1,292 areas within the Klang Valley going dry, compounding an earlier supply disruption that was announced due to a burst pipe.
As of 1pm today, Air Selangor announced that 90 per cent of the affected areas have had their water supply restored, with 130 areas still affected by the unscheduled interruption.
Early in September this year, the same 1,292 areas were affected by unscheduled water cuts also due to odour pollution that forced the water treatment plants to shut down, with service fully restored only six days later.
