Eight, including company director, remanded a week over pollution behind Klang Valley’s latest mass water cuts
SELAYANG, Oct 22 — Police won today a one-week remand order for eight workers of a company including a director who were arrested on suspicion of polluting Sungai Selangor, one of the Klang Valley’s main water sources.
The Magistrates Court in Selayang allowed the police to detain the eight until October 28 for their investigation into the incident that left over a million account holders without water supply earlier this week.
Sharp at 9am, the eight men, including the construction machinery sales and repair company’s 31-year-old director and his 62-year-old father, arrived at the Magistrates Courts in a police truck, cuffed and dressed in police lockup uniform.
Aside from the two, the others arrested were six workers aged between 28 and 66, which included two locals and four others from Pakistan, Nepal, and Myanmar.
All eight were held at the court lockup for about half an hour before they were brought before Magistrate Nik Fadli Nik Azlan who granted the order.
The entire remand process took around 20 minutes, after which the suspects were redirected to the court lockup and returned to police custody.
Yesterday, Selangor Criminal Investigations Department chief Datuk Fadzil Ahmat had revealed the eight were arrested in Rawang, after the latest odour pollution was traced back to the firm’s premises.
Fadzil said the case is being investigated under Section 430 of the Penal Code that covers the offence of mischief committed that causes a diminution of the supply of water, which is punishable by imprisonment of between five and 30 years, a fine, or both upon conviction.
The Selangor CID chief yesterday said the actual contamination behind the odour pollution of one the region’s main arteries was detected at 12.38am on October 19, forcing the closure of several Air Selangor water treatment plants.
He had said preliminary investigations found the contaminant to have terminated at a stream along Sungai Gong, which is suspected to have come from the company repairing and selling construction machinery.
The pollution on early Monday morning left nearly 1.2 million water account holders in 1,292 areas within the Klang Valley without water supply, compounding an earlier disruption that was announced due to a burst pipe.
Air Selangor earlier today said that water supply to all the affected areas had been fully restored as of 6am this morning.
The incident was also the second major regional supply disruption caused by pollution in consecutive months.
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