Bengaluru: All for insurance, he set fire to own shop

Bengaluru: The Chickpet police on Saturday cracked the case of a massive explosion and fire at a four-storey building on B.V.K. Iyengar Road in the early hours of Friday with the arrest of the owner of Maya Electricals.

They have booked the 26-year-old owner of the store, Narendra Lal Choudhary, for murder and fire mischief.

The police investigation revealed that Narendra had orchestrated the fire accident with the help of his two accomplices, one of whom died in the incident, to claim insurance as he ran into debts of Rs 1.5 crore.

Narendra hatched a plan with his two friends, Gajendra, a 35-year-old cab driver and a resident of Kurubarahalli, and Arun Kumar to set fire to his own shop and make it look like an accident to claim the insurance amount. He had insured his shop and the godown for nearly Rs 2 crore. As per plan, they set the shop on fire in the early hours of Friday, the police said.

Both Gajendra and Arun arrived at the building early on Friday morning with cans of petrol. While Arun was pouring petrol all over the godown and the shop, Gajendra was trying to connect a few batteries from the UPS to the main power supply line. Luck ran out for Gajendra when main switch of the power supply line exploded. Gajendra was charred to death, while Arun, who sustained burns, ran away from the spot that was spotted by a few neighbours.

The impact of the explosion and the fire was so high that the entire four-storeyed building was gutted and the neighbouring buildings were also damaged creating panic among the residents. The fire and emergency service personnel rushed to the spot and doused the fire. Chickpet police traced Arun to a private hospital, interrogated him and found out the truth behind the incident.

Based on his information, the police analysed the call detail records (CDRs) between Gajendra and Narendra and found that they were constantly in touch.

The residents and owners of the damaged buildings are in a fix as they cannot claim any compensation for the incident as it was done with criminal intent.

“Since it was a criminal act and not a fire accident, the victims will not get any compensation,” a police officer said, adding that the victims can approach the court to seek compensation.

The cops have booked Narendra for murder, fire mischief and various other sections pertaining to the incident and further investigations are underway.