Kundapur, November 29: After the incident of clash erupted between youths belonging to two groups over a trivial reason in which one was arrested, a one –strayed building belonging to a local mosque was completely burnt due to fire accident on Saturday early morning November 29th at around 1 am.
The entire Jamiya Complex has been charred in this fire accident. The building is located within 100 metre’s of Gangolli police outpost. The cause for the fire, is not known.
The shop keepers believe that electric short circuit would not have caused the accident. All the shop owners have cultivated the habit of making it sure that main switches are put off before closing the shops daily. They say the mains were switched off on Friday night too. It is said that no highly combustible materials were stored in any of these shops. Hence, it is said neither the accidental fire nor the short circuit caused this incident.
The complex housed ten shops including four hardware shops, a textile shop, a gift center, a tailoring shop, furniture shop, a cosmetics store and baby needs shop were charred owing to a loss of crores of rupees, as estimated.
Some people who saw that the building was engulfed in fire, conveyed information to the police. The police immediately alerted fire extinguishers. Four fire engines fought to bring the fire under control.
Four circle inspectors, three DARs, one commando, two KSRP, 10 PSI’s and police personnel have been stationed.
Small town Gangolli has always been identified as a communally sensitive region, which had witnessed an incident of friction between two groups from different communities at around 10 pm on Thursday and the above incident occurring within a day has aroused rumours of a possible act of revenge.
Hanif, who had got admitted into a hospital after the clashes on Thursday night, was arrested by the police when he was coming out after being discharged by the hospital on Friday. He was produced in the court, upon which he was remanded to judicial custody till December 12.
Police circle inspectors, P M Diwakar, and Sudarsha, had visited the village immediately after Thursday’s incident, and beefed up security measures. Western range inspector general of police, Amrit Paul, visited Gangolli on Friday and warned that the offenders will be brought under strict legal actions. Even after these developments, the fire accident took place, that too within a short range from the police outpost which has aroused many suspicions.
Udupi district in-charge Minister Vinay Kumar Sorake, former union minister Oscar Fernandes, Byndoor MLA K Gopal Poojary have visited the spot and assured of appropriate actions.
