Hyderabad: The son of a Telangana State Special Police DSP rank official, who is a civil service aspirant, was behind the series of fires near Alpha hotel in Secunderabad early on Tuesday morning.
T. Chiranjeevi (23), son of TSSP Kondapur Battalion senior cop Mr T.V. Hanumantha Rao, and his friend got drunk and came to Secunderabad for some “adventure and excitement”.
Chiranjeevi and his friend, Kalidindi Jayen-dra Varma (24), a former employee in a multinational company, set fire to five shops, causing damages worth lakhs.
The duo was so twisted that they helped fire officials to douse the fire at three shops, and when the fire tender left, they torched two other shops, a kilometer from the previous spot. When the fire tender returned to the area, they helped the firemen again.
North Zone police arrested the duo on Wednesday after verifying CCTV footages, which had captured them in the act. During police interrogation, they confessed that they derived some “sadistic pleasure” from damaging others’ property.
Chiranjeevi, a resident of Nallakunta and Varma, a resident of Kothapet, went out on Monday night after telling their families that they were going for group study.
“They got drunk and came to Secunderabad.
They set on fire three cloth shops near the Market police station. When fire tenders came to the spot following alerts from locals and the police, the duo, who hid for a while, came out and started helping the firemen,” said Mr N. Prakash Reddy, deputy commissioner of police of North Zone.
When the fire tender left, they went towards Alfa Hotel and torched two more shops, a footwear shop and a bag shop. “The fire tender came again to douse the fire. The duo joined the fire fighting again. This time, our men noticed their over-enthusiastic nature and stopped them. Cops took down their details.
Later, we checked the CCTV footages and found the same people torching the shops. We soon arrested them after booking cases,” said the DCP.
The duo told the cops that they were involved in a minor accident near Alpha Hotel a year ago and they had to pay some penalty in that case. They had come to the spot to “relish” the memory and decided they would torch the shops.
