Daijiworld Media Network - Beltangady (SP)

Beltangady, Jan 18: Some shops at Santhekatte and Church Road here were torched on the night of Friday January 16. The fire inflicted a loss of several lacs of rupees on the shop owners.

A shop named 'Kudradka Enterprises' on Church Road was torched by miscreants at around 11.30 pm. Some items in front of this shop which include glass panes and plywood suffered extensive damages. Owner of the shop, Abdul Khader, told the police that he suffered a loss of about one lac rupees in this incident.

Fire was also noticed in three shops at the town panchayat commercial complex at Santhekatte here. While one of the shops dealing in stationery items got almost entirely gutted down, two adjacent shops were partially burnt. Pushpavati, owner of the stationery shop, estimated that the fire which started at around 1.15 am on Saturday, caused her loss to the tune of eight lac rupees. An adjacent shop owned by Qasim dealing in areca nut, and a studio owned by Subodh Jain, suffered partial losses.

Some Sabarimala pilgrims noticed the fire and alerted policemen on night beat. Two fire brigade vehicles reached the spot and succeeded in extinguishing fire. Local assistant superintendent of police, Rahul Kumar, was seen personally shifting goods to avoid them from getting burnt down. The policemen thereafter kept close watch all over the town the entire night to ensure that no untoward incidents occur as a result of these incidents.

As per latest reports, in Uppaningady too, a garage, a helmet shop, a grocery shop and a petty shop were gutted in fire on the intervening night between Saturday January 17 and Sunday January 18.