Belagavi police arrested Amit Gaekwad, 37, on charges of setting fire to 11 cars parked on the road side in the city.
He is an assistant professor in the Belagavi Institute of Medical Sciences, and has a postgraduate degree in medicine. He hails from Kalaburagi and has been a resident of Belagavi for 10 years now.
Gaekwad was caught by a security guard at a residential complex in Visvesvaraya Nagar where he tried to set fire to a car.
The police who arrived on the spot, found materials like camphor, engine oil, old rags, matchboxes, lighter and knives. He had set fire to 11 cars in Jadhav Nagar and military camp area on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, police said. He would pour oil inside the car bonnet, set fire to a piece of camphor and throw it inside the bonnet, and the engine would catch fire immediately, police said. This seems to be his modus operandi.
He has not told why he was setting fire to others’ cars. He is only saying he has a receipt for the camphor he bought, Deputy Commissioner of Police Seema Latkar said.
She said he had issues of maladjustment in his college and his senior officers were planning to send him on long leave.
A team of officers are investigating whether similar incidents in Kalaburgi are related to the offences in Belagavi.
