Pramesh S Jain
In a swift action,the Avalahalli police cracked the case within few hours of the incident and arrested the 22-year-old youth who set his own house on fire in the wee hours of Tuesday to settle score with his father for scolding him all the time .
The accused identified as Ranjith,22, was arrested after the police and FSL team investigated the scene of crime found that it was insider job and questioned the family members in detail .
The incident occurred around 1.30 am on tuesday when four people,including,Jayanth Muniyappa,51,a gram panchayat member,his wife,a son,and a daughter,were sleeping inside the house.
All of them had a narrow escape as they ran out of the house right in time.
Senior officer told reporters,Ranjith,son of the gram panchayat member,poured petrol on the walls of the house and torched it.
The occupants woke up as they experienced extreme heat and found themselves surrounded by fire.
“They quickly stormed out of the house amidst a thick cloud of smoke.The neighbours rushed to their help and the family members were rescued out safely before they could suffer burn injuries .
Meanwhile Ranjith who was at home had suffered minor burn injuries on his hand and head and was taken to the hospital for treatment while the family members suffered respiratory issues due to the flames and smoke .
Due to the fire the house was partially gutted and goods and furniture worth ₹25 lakh were destroyed .
Initially the family members thought that the fire broke out from the AC unit installed at the outside of the house due to short circuit but later found five plastic bottles including one petrol filled Can abandoned at the compound .
Suspecting that someone torched the house to kill him and family members,Jayanth filed a complaint.
Based on the complaint, the police conducted a detailed probe and suspect that some insiders hand and picked up Ranjith for questioning.
A detailed questioning led him to confess to the crime based on which he was arrested .
During investigation it was found that Ranjith had disagreements with his father, and the latter had denied giving Ranjith money a week ago.
Further probe revealed that father had spent lakhs of rupees on Ranjith’s education but he could not utilize it properly and wasted all the money on vices .
This angered the father and stopped giving him money which led frequent arguments between Ranjith and his father.
After a heated argument recently Ranjith decided to teach his father a lesson and decided to set the house on fire and make it look like sabotage .
The police have taken the accused into custody further to ascertain if there is any other motive behind the incident.
