Pune: 77 two-wheelers, eight 4-wheelers torched in Pune

The incidents took place between 3 am and 4.30 am, police said. Reportedly, an unidentified miscreant is responsible for setting the vehicles on fire.

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Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone II) Sudhakar Pathare said, “We have checked footage from security cameras at all six places. In all the cases, one person is seen, coming on a two-wheeler. At every spot, the suspect pulled out external fuel pipes of the motorcycles which resulted in leakage of petrol from the tanks. The vehicles were then set on fire by igniting leaked petrol. The fire must have spread from one vehicle to the other.”

The targeted premises were Dominos Pizza parking in Anandnagar, Suryanagari Society, A and B wings of Swaminarayan Apartment, Akshay Glory Apartment, Avadhoot Arcade and Ram Heights — all in and around Sun City area.

Kailas Mujumale, a resident of Suryanagari Society, said, “My flat is on the ground floor. I woke up because of loud explosions. I could step out of the flat as the fumes were yet to reach my door. We started pulling away some of the bikes, but it was too late. At least 13 bikes from our parking lot were completely gutted.”

Kshitija Phadke, a resident of Swaminarayan Society, said, “We woke up to loud screams of one of our neighbours. From our window, we could see that bikes in the building in front of ours were on fire. We later came to know that two-wheelers in our parking lot were burning and we could hear the loud explosion of tyres. As we tried to climb down the stairs, hot fumes started coming up. Four bikes owned by my family have been completely gutted.”

Fire Brigade’s station officer Gajanan Patrudkar said, “There were a lot of small explosions mainly because of bursting tyres and sudden bursting of vaporised petrol. The fire was brought under control within 15 to 20 minutes.”