A 66-year-old man has been charged on Friday with the murder of a woman whose badly-burnt body was found following the Afro Asia Building fire on Wednesday morning.
Govindasamy Nallaiah is accused of killing Low Foong Meng, 56, in an office belonging to law firm, B Rengarajoo & Associates, reported Channel NewsAsia.
The building fire is believed to have started in the law firm, located on the sixth floor, and was contained within it.
It is believed that Govindasamy was a client of the firm. The firm is run by Low's partner, lawyer Rengarajoo Balasamy, whom she lived with. She also worked at the firm.
Govindasamy is now remanded at the Central Police Division and will be back in court on 19 August.
If convicted of murder, he will face the death penalty.
The Indian man was arrested at 10,50 pm on Wednesday in Jurong. The arrest was made 13 hours after the fire at law firm B Rengarajoo & Associates was reported.
The SCDF said it was alerted to the fire at the seven-storey building at 63 Robinson Road at 10 am. Some 20 fire fighters were deployed to the affected unit to put out the fire.
The fire was confined to a unit measuring about 30 by 20 metres and did not spread to adjacent units, said SCDF. Officers took half an hour to control the fire and another half an hour to extinguish it.
Several vehicles were sent to the scene, including fire engines, four Red Rhinos, an ambulance and four support vehicles. Jet sprays were used outside the building to prevent the fire from spreading.
A support vehicle that was sent to help fight the fire experienced a glitch as its mechanical arm, used to lift firemen, stalled. SCDF said this did not hamper operations as officers could still get to the affected unit and bring the fire under control.
Officers from Central Police Division and the Criminal Investigation Department’s Special Investigation Section were at the scene to conduct investigations while officers from CID’s Forensic Management Branch and scientists from the Health Sciences Authority were present to gather forensic evidence.
Occupants, who just went through a fire drill last week, evacuated on their own prior to SCDF's arrival.
Those whom Yahoo! Singapore spoke to said the couple have been working at the building for some 20 years.
Insurance agent Joyce Ng, 52, who works on the fifth floor, described Rengarajoo as friendly and helpful.
Other building occupants said they started noticing the smell of gas at about 9:30am and saw smoke on the sixth floor 20 minutes later. Building security evacuated the occupants and the process was cool and calm, they said.
This is the first time the building, one of the oldest in the area, caught fire, they said.
The building which was upgraded just three months ago is managed by Afro Asia Shipping Company (Pte Ltd).
The cause of fire and the death is under investigation.
For further enquiries on the matter, the public may call the police hotline at 1800-5471818.
- Additional reporting by Liyana Low
