India: Police arrest jilter lover for causing fire that engulfed building

Police have arrested a jilted lover, who had allegedly ignited a fire in a three-storey residential building that left seven dead and nine injured here in Madhya Pradesh, an official said on Sunday.

Upon seeing the police, the accused, Shubham alias Sanjay Dixit, 27, tried to flee and in the process fell on the road in Lohamandi area and got injured, Indore’s Vijay Nagar police station in-charge Tehzeeb Qazi told PTI, adding that the man was being questioned.

The accused was nabbed on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday and booked under Indian Penal Code Sections 302 (murder) and 436 (mischief by fire intending to cause destruction of any building), the police said.

He had fled after allegedly torching the scooter of a woman residing in the residential building in Vijay Nagar locality on Saturday after she rejected his marriage offer.

Dixit, who hails from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh, had been working in a private firm for the last couple of months, the police official said.

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Meanwhile, a video on social media purportedly showed Dixit bleeding from his hands and legs while lying on a stretcher in a hospital and writhing in pain.

On Saturday morning, Dixit had allegedly torched the woman’s scooter, following which the fire from the building’s parking area spread upwards, engulfing the premises, police said.

“Initially, it had appeared that a short-circuit caused the fire. But, after scanning CCTV footage of the houses near the gutted building, police found that a man ignited the blaze by setting fire to a vehicle in the building’s parking area. The flames spread and engulfed the three-storey building,” an official said.

The accused had vacated a rented flat in the building six months ago. He wanted to marry the woman who lived in the same building, but she was going to marry another person, the police said.

Dixit and the woman also had a quarrel over Rs10,000, they had said.

After setting the woman’s vehicle on fire, Dixit fled to his friend’s place in Niranjanpur and later moved to Lohamandi, the police said.

• India