Fire guts 50 unclaimed vehicles at police station

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: In a bizarre incident, over 50 unclaimed two-wheelers parked outside the Kodigehalli Police Station in the city were gutted in a fire on Sunday morning.

According to the police, the parking space of the police station was covered by thick dry grass. Cops told News Trail soon after the incident that the incident may have occurred due to a fire lit in a yard where garbage was being dumped near the police station.

The unclaimed vehicles had been parked in a ground belonging to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), they added. Another official later said that the cops noticed a spark in the nearby transformer that day and almost half-an-hour later, a fire was noticed in the parking lot. Some other two-wheelers, seized over the last few months, were safe as they had been kept a few metres away from the ground.

Following an alert, firefighters arrived on the scene and doused the fire. As per officials, the area at the police station was engulfed in thick smoke due to the fire. Police later in the day said that the vehicles that were destroyed had been seized between 2002 and 2017 in various cases and were not in running condition.

The Kodigehalli police had not disposed of the seized vehicles even after 20 years. It is alleged that the fire was caused due to the carelessness of the police department, but they have blamed Bescom for it. Similar cases have taken place earlier where unclaimed vehicles were destroyed in a fire breakout.

Recently, an inquiry was initiated against two policemen after they were alleged to have been involved in auctioning off a stolen scooter without following the prescribed norms and for lying to the court in order to get the permission to auction.