Thiruvananthapuram:
Six persons, including the village officer of Vellarada, were injured when an unidentified man set the Vellarada village office on fire on Thursday. The man wearing a helmet and jacket used a flammable liquid to trigger the fire and locked the door of the office from outside before fleeing. The injured were identified as village officer N. Mohan, revenue officials Prabhakaran Nair, Krishnakumar and Venugopal, sweeper Vijayamma and a senior citizen Ishaq. Another woman identified as Mini who works in a nearby homoeo clinic fainted on inhaling the smoke.
As per Vellarada police, the suspect came to the office located at Anappara around 11a.m. He just told everyone, “I will show you a trick” and poured flammable liquid all around before lighting it with match sticks. He then locked the sole door which also was on fire.
Village assistant Venugopal suffered burns on his face and hands while trying to thwart the assailant. The scared officials huddled up in the bathroom for around 15 minutes. The local resident broke open the ventilators with axe and rescued the officials.
As per eyewitnesses, the man’s shoe was on fire and he walked into the bathroom of the nearby homoeo clinic and doused it. However, he walked away without being stopped as he did the act before the people realised there was a fire in the nearby office. The wooden windows of the office were sealed from outside with logs nailed onto it.
“This appears to be the work of a person who is unhappy with the service from the village officer,” said Vellarada circle inspector M. Raveendran.
Collector Biju Prabhakar said that issues related to issuance of caste certificate have often happened in the office.
Meanwhile, local sources claim that the village officials were gearing up to depose against a granite quarry owner who has stakes in a particular land at Plankudikavu here. The police registered a case of arson and murder attempt and started a probe.
