MYSURU: Even as help continues to pour in for Syed Isaaq, a daily wager whose library was gutted in an inferno, Mysuru police arrested a man in connection with the case but said the fire started in a nearby sofa shop and not the library.
The city police which had constituted a special team to nab the culprits have now arrested 35-year-old Syed Nazeer for the inferno. According to city police commissioner Chandragupta, the blaze started from a sofa shop adjacent to Isaaq's library after the accused threw a cigarette butt there.
The commissioner at an interaction here said though prima facie, the act did not seem to be deliberate and the accused is not a habitual offender, they have slapped charges under IPC section 436 (mischief by fire with intent of destruction) on Nazeer, who is also a daily wager, and put him behind bars. When asked about the charges, he said they are investigating whether there was any intention behind the act or not.
The matter caught widespread attention and sympathy as Isaaq's library contained over 11,000 books including 3,000 on the Bhagavad Gita as well as other religions, most of them in Kannada, that he collected over the years which had been a blessing for many in the neighbourhood.
Moved by the plight, a campaign saw over Rs 28 lakh being collected for rebuilding Isaaq's library as well as intervention by Education Minister Suresh Kumar and an initiative by Prof Muzaffar Azadi of Mysore University to crowdsource books which saw donations even from other countries.
According to the police, the incident was caught on a CCTV installed at a nearby house, which shows two fires breaking out. The first fire was caused at around 10 pm on April 8 when Nazeer dropped his cigarette butt at the sofa shop after smoking it.
However, even though it was doused by two men from the locality, hours later by 2 am, visuals show another fire engulfing the sofa shop and spreading to Isaaq's library next to it.
While the video does not clearly show how the second fire started, police say that it was not properly put out after the first instance and hence triggered the second inferno. Notably, while Isaaq has filed a case over the matter, the sofa shop owner who also suffered much damage has not filed any case.
The commissioner also said both the library and sofa shop owner should have taken precautions to avoid such fire incidents. When asked about any pre-existing rivalries or earlier attempts on the library as claimed by Isaaq, the commissioner responded saying that they are investigating the matter.