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Man burnt to death while setting fire to house in Sharjah

SHARJAH — A UAE national was fatally burnt in the early morning hour on Saturday while he was allegedly setting fire to a traditional Arab villa.

The man was said to have been taking revenge on its occupants, all Asians, as they stopped “paying him bribes to keep their illicit liquor manufacturing activities in the house a secret.”

The deceased, identified only as J. R. along with three other friends from various Gulf countries, went to the villa located in Al Ghurair area with petrol cans, and set it afire.

The entire house quickly exploded in flames, as the inflammable stocks of the locally-brewed liquor, arrack, caught fire.

Another man, identified as M.S., who accompanied J. R. suffered serious burns and was rushed to the Kuwaiti Hospital, Sharjah, by a friend who had accompanied them.

However, none of the inhabitants of the house was injured as they were away.

A police source told Khaleej Times it appeared that the deceased often received cash bribes from the occupants of the house in order that he would not inform the police about the illegal liquor manufacturing and sale activities being conducted in the villa.

But, the deceased wanted more money, and the inhabitants refused to oblige.

This resulted in a verbal fight between them following which the deceased allegedly decided to take revenge by burning down the house and the stocks of liquor in it.

The police said that when the operations room received a call about the fire, officers from Al Garb police station, the Anjad patrol and the Civil Defence Unit rushed to the spot and put out the fire. When the fire fighting was on, they found the completely charred body of an unidentified person.

During the course of the investigation and house search to identify the deceased, the officers received a call from the Kuwaiti hospital informing them about the arrival of another person with severe burns.

When the officers went to the hospital to investigate the possible link to the villa fire, they met M. A, a Gulf national, who had rushed M.S to the hospital.

M.S told the police that the deceased was his friend and the latter had asked him and another friend to accompany him to Al Ghurair area where his car had run out of petrol .

He said they went in the car of M. S and took a gallon of fuel from a petrol station. “Later, the deceased had asked us to accompany him to a house where he wanted to call someone to go with us to check the car. But, to our surprise, we saw him going inside the house and pouring petrol. When M.S tried to stop him, he threw a match stick and set the house on fire,” M.S narrated from his hospital bed.

During the investigations, the police found that the deceased had a quarrel with the Asians, and decided to take revenge on them by burning the house.

The police investigations led to the arrest of all the occupants of the house.

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