of residents In the aftermath of the Bukit Ho Swee fire, the government gave priority to plans to relocate victims to permanent flats, as it deemed conditions at relief centres unsanitary. It announced a resettlement plan the day after the fire, and it promised to rehouse all the victims of the fire within a year. During a special sitting of the Legislative Assembly, the government passed a motion to acquire the entire Bukit Ho Swee area to construct low-cost housing for the victims. In the meantime, a portion of the victims were resettled in recently completed flats in Queenstown, St. Michael and Tiong Bahru. Approximately 6,000 victims were eventually relocated in this first phase of resettlement, dubbed "Operation Shift". On 4 June 1961, ten days after the disaster, the victims of the fire began relocating from the temporary relief shelters to their new one- or two-room flats. By 10 June, all victims had moved out of temporary shelters. The government then built the first five blocks of 768 flats in 9 months. During the next four years, over 8,000 flats were built and those who lost their homes were able to return. However, not all of the victims were willing or able to move into government-built flats, and instead chose to move into undamaged houses in the original kampong. A squatter settlement, a bit smaller than the original kampong, thus remained in the locality. In 1968, the new settlement caught fire again, rendering 3,000 people homeless. Most of the fire's victims were rehoused within a day. Investigations Even before the fire was extinguished, rumours of arson were already spreading rapidly. Some eyewitnesses reportedly saw "young Chinese men" throwing flaming torches onto the roof of an attap house. On 28 May, Nanyang Siang Pau reported that the Criminal Investigation Department had questioned 2 residents living near the epicenter of the fire. By early June, the Department had questioned over 10 eyewitnesses regarding the fire. On 9 June, the police had arrested a suspect, but he was subsequently released due to the lack of concrete evidence supporting the eyewitness testimonies. After this report, there was no further coverage of the investigation into the cause of the fire. In addition to arson, other speculated causes of the Bukit Ho Swee fire include a gangster fight gone wrong and fire from a cooking stove. The cause of the fire has remained a mystery to