An electric scooter parked at the veranda of a house near Arani town in Tiruvannamalai caught fire.
The police said P. Saranraj, 44, who works in a private company at Velapadi village, a thickly populated farming neighbourhood near Arani town, had parked his scooter, near the electricity meter box, at the veranda of his house. He removed the plug from the power point near the meter box after charging the scooter.
Around 8.30 a.m when he started the scooter, smoke started emanating from the bike and a fire broke out. “Before we reached the spot, most of the scooter was gutted. Electrical short circuit might be the reason for the accident. This is the first incident in Arani in all these years,” R. Gopalakrishnan, Station Fire Officer (SFO), Arani town, told The Hindu.
On an alert, fire tenders from Arani town and Arani Taluk police reached the spot. However, the vehicle was gutted. Initial investigation revealed that Mr. Saranraj brought the vehicle to the showroom near the Government Medical College Hospital in Adukkamparai village in Vellore a year ago. The police said charging the vehicle for too long could have caused the fire.
The police said this was not the first time that electric scooters had caught fire. In February, an electric scooter parked at the veranda of a house in Vaniyambadi town near Tirupattur caught fire. The vehicle was left for charging the previous night before the owner of the vehicle S. Ihsanuallh went to sleep. The fire gutted his bike and the meter box.
In March, 2022, a 49-year-old man and his daughter died of suffocation after his new e-bike went up in flames in front of his house on Balaraman Street at Chinna Allapuram near Old Town in Vellore.
