On Thursday (22nd February), late in the night, one Zubair from Panipat in Haryana torched 7 vehicles in 27 minutes in Agra. The drunk accused was arrested by the Agra police. The accused set ablaze the vehicles parked in front of houses in Murli Vihar Colony with a lighter. Multiple CCTV footages in the area are collected by the Agra police confirming his identity.
The accused will be produced in the court for further proceedings in the case with investigations going on. Locals alleged that he targeted cars parked in front of houses that had Saffron Lord Ram flags.
According to reports, on Thursday at 1:57 a.m., the family of Gajendra Singh Chouhan living in the Murli Vihar Colony under the Shahganj police station area of Agra, woke up listening to the sound of the car sensors. To check if there was a theft attempt, the family came outside only to discover that the car was torched. The car was significantly damaged before the fire could be extinguished. At the same time, Assistant District Public Prosecutor Yogesh Baghel who lived in the same colony also reported that his car was torched. It was then revealed that the vehicles of more people in the locality were also burnt similarly. The locals then called the police. Police arrested the accused Zubair who was spotted on a CCTV in the colony.
7 cars were set on fire at 14 different places in the colony. Wood, straw pools, kiosks along the railway line, a hut and garden mesh kept outside the house were also burnt. The entire incident was captured in CCTVs installed outside houses. The arson incident in the colony caused chaos. People came on the streets to stop the accused.
Murli Bihar resident Gajendra Singh said that around 2 AM, the alarm of his car started to sound, and he thought that the car was being stolen. When he rushed outside, he saw that the car was on fire. He then doused the fire with the help of his neighbours, but the front of the car was damaged. 1 minute later, a car parked outside the house of Yogendra Baghel just 200 meters away was also on fire. Cars belonging to Pradeep Kumar Agarwal, Chandrant Upreti, Atul Dubey, Ajeet Singh were also torched, and some of them were completely damaged. All total 7 cars were torched in just 27 minutes, from 1.57 AM to 2.24 AM.
People gathered on the street and started to look for the attacker. Later he was nabbed from the area.
As per locals, only those cars were torched which were parked outside houses with Lord Ram flags hoisted on the occasion of Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha. Cars in the same area parked in houses without saffron flags were not attacked. Even the kiosk that was burnt had a saffron flag, while nearby kiosks not attacked do not have the flag.
While sharing more information on this case, ACP Mayank Tiwari of the Lohamandi police station said, “We received a call from a person living near the Pruthviraj Gate outpost under the Shahganj police station. He informed us that a youth was torching multiple vehicles. We reached the spot and arrested a person named Zubair. He torched 7 cars. 3 cars were completely burnt. 4 cars were partially burnt. He also torched 2 stalls and a tea shop. He was immediately arrested on the spot. A case is also filed. We are also interrogating him. Our department, IB, ATS, and LIU teams are deployed in the questioning. We are also checking for his crime history. A case is filed under relevant sections. We will present him to the court soon after completing the legal procedures.”
The accused Zubair was caught and brought to the police station. Being drunk, he was not in a position to be questioned. In the afternoon, when his intoxication subsided, the interrogation began. He said that he was unable to find an address, and when he asked the locals, nobody helped him. He got angry over it and torched the cars, he claimed.
The police also checked for Zubair’s crime history from his native place Panipat, and no criminal history was found.
However, locals are insisting that only those cars were targeted which were parked in houses with saffron flags. They questioned the version that Zubair was drunk and he it did it due to anger over not getting help, asking why he set fire to the cars parked in front of the houses where Shri Ram’s flags were installed, leaving vehicles parked outside houses that did not have flags. They also noted that the attack took place on 22 February, a month after the Ram Mandir Pran Pratishtha. After these allegations, police became alert and called the ATS.
In a media interaction, the wife of the accused Zubair said that on Thursday evening, he left home to go to Agra to meet his friend. He met his friend Abdul Rauf, who lives in Bapu Nagar Khandari. In a police inquiry, Abdul Rauf said that Zubair had consumed liquor from a shop in TP Nagar. The police took him to that spot where it was confirmed from the CCTV footage.
Murli Vihar Colony is spread over several acres. According to CCTV footage, the accused set fire to two cars in less than a minute at some places, even though the distance between them was several hundred meters. Therefore the residents are also speculating if he was accompanied by someone else in this crime.