No lives were lost, but the financial setback to traders was very significant. Goods worth an estimated Rs 24 crore were destroyed.
Ten days later, investigators believe they know how the fire started. It was not, they said, an accident or a short-circuit. It was arson.
Footage from CCTV cameras shows a man, his face covered with a handkerchief, climbing to the sixth floor of the multi-storey Shyam Sangini Textile Market around 12.20 am on the night of the fire.
The footage shows the man spraying something from a bottle on parcels kept in the passage, before he puts a match to them. The man is seen leaving the building after four minutes, police said.
Investigators believe they know who the man is: a resident of Maharashtra who worked in the market as a labourer for some six months before quitting, apparently without any reason, a couple of months ago.
“We have the man’s name and address but we are not disclosing those details until he is apprehended,” Saroli police inspector S R Vekariya told The Indian Express.
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The fire that broke out in the early hours of September 9 and raged for 14 hours destroyed goods worth an estimated Rs 24 crore, police said. (Express Photo)
The six-storey Shyam Sangini Textile market has 284 large shops, each measuring about 2,000 square feet. The Surat Fire Department got a call around 12.50 am on September 9. The flames completely gutted large consignments of finished textiles goods that had been kept ready for delivery to other states ahead of Dussehra and Diwali.
The suspect in the CCTV footage was spotted by the manager of the market, Rahul Kumar Pandey, police said.
Investigators tracked the man’s movements in other cameras outside the market, and once they got shots of his face, showed the pictures to the textile traders who had their shops on the floor that the alleged arsonist had targeted.
“The man had his face covered, and we could not identify him immediately. But we started tracking his movements through CCTV footage from various roads and shops. We discovered that he had come to the textile market on a motorcycle and had left on the same bike,” Vekariya said.
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The man in the footage was ultimately identified by a trader who has a shop in the market, the officer said.
“A shop owner told us that the suspect had worked in his firm as a labourer for six months, and had quit the job two months ago without citing any reason,” Vekariya said.
An FIR against an unknown person was registered at Saroli police station on September 10, based on a complaint by Assistant Sub-inspector Ajitbhai Thakore.
The FIR was registered under Section 326 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), which relates to “Mischief by injury, inundation, fire or explosive substance, etc.”.
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Because of the highly inflammable materials such as cardboard, synthetic saris and dress materials, and plastic packing materials, the fire that started in the passage of the sixth floor spread to nearby shops and covered the entire floor, destroying 17 shops.
The fire later reached the fifth floor and damaged some shops on that floor as well.
Surat is the country’s largest hub of synthetic textiles and dress materials. September is a busy month in the city and the market, when traders are flooded with orders for Navratri and Diwali from across India.
Inspector Vekariya said, “We have sent teams to Maharashtra and have launched a hunt for the accused in various districts. We have carried out searches at the home of the suspect, and the homes of his relatives. We are collecting information about the friends and associates of the accused as well.”
The fire that broke out in the early hours of September 9 and raged for 14 hours destroyed goods worth an estimated Rs 24 crore, police said. (Express Photo)