A library was burnt to ashes in Mysuru, Karnataka on Friday, the 9th of April. The library with over 11,000 books and nearly 3000 copies of the Bhagavad Gita belonged to a daily wage labourer called Syed Isaac. There was an outpouring of empathy for the person who had taken the initiative to provide people with easy access to books.
An arrest has now been made in connection with the incident. The Mysuru City Police has arrested a man for carelessly throwing a matchstick which led to the fire, The Hindu has reported. The 35 year old accused had apparently lit the matchstick to light a beedi and then proceeded to throw it away without caution.
City Police Commissioner Chandragupta said at a press conference that the accused, Syed Nasir, returned home late at night in a drunken state. He had a fight with his mother and sisters and then got out of his house. He pruchased beedis and matchsticks and threw the matchstick at furniture and cushions kept outside a repair shop in the open.
A few minutes after he left the spot, a small fire had broken out. Two locals had spotted the same and doused it but unfortunately, it had not been doused completely. The fire then kept growing and soon, it enveloped the books in the adjacent library and destroyed them.
The Police learnt the details through visuals of the night captured by a CCTV camera. The Police said that there is no recorded enmity between Syed Nasir and Syed Isaac even though the latter had alleged that miscreants had set the library on fire due to enmity towards the Kannada language. However, further investigations are underway to determine whether the incident was deliberate or otherwise.
