Saturday, 27 APRIL 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The police arrested a restaurant owner on charges of setting a three-storey garment shop on fire at Paltan Bazaar in Dehradun in the wee hours of Thursday. As per the preliminary investigation, the accused committed this crime reportedly due to a money transaction issue with the garment shop owner, the Dehradun senior superintendent of police Ajai Singh said. He said that the police received information in the early hours of Thursday that the Omji Garments shop located in Paltan Bazaar owned by Navneet Rajvanshi had caught fire. The owner registered a police complaint the next day stating that he lost items of clothing and other items worth crores of rupees in the fire. He also said that somebody intentionally lit his shop by using petrol. Singh said that considering the issue’s sensitivity, the police registered an FIR against an accused and formed multiple teams to investigate the matter. The police analysed CCTV footage near the shop at Paltan Bazaar and found a suspicious man near the shop minutes before the shop was set on fire. He said that the police activated its informer system soon after spotting the accused and his two-wheeler in the footage. The police identified the accused as Arun Kalra (58) and reached his home for inquiry. The family informed the police that Kalra had been missing since the night of the incident. The police finally arrested the accused from Muzaffarnagar on Friday. Singh said that the man had confessed in the preliminary inquiry that he had a business transaction issue with the shop owner and a case is also pending in court regarding the same. He admitted to setting the shop on fire in a rage. The police will reveal more details about the case after further interrogation, the SSP added.
