A fire initially thought of as an accident ended up being a major crime upon investigation, leading to the Crime Branch arresting a man named Vinod Pandit Savle.
An accountant exacted a Rs 24-crore “revenge” on an entire textile market over a Rs 10,000 pending salary that his employer owed him, using all of Rs 150 on petrol and two strikes of matches, police in Gujarat’s Surat said on Tuesday.
With petrol worth Rs 150 and two matchsticks, Vinod Pandit Savle set fire to his ex-employer’s shop; it spread much further, police said. He escaped to Khatu Shyam, then Ayodhya, and was arrested upon his return.
The large quantity of cloth and packing material allowed the fire to spread rapidly, engulfing several shops. The Saroli area police registered a case against an unidentified person following the fire. Because he was unable to handle the accounts work properly, the officer added, he had to quit in June.
The case was cracked as security camera footage showed a man, with his face covered, allegedly starting the fire from parcels of cloth outside a shop in Shyam Sangini Textile Market on the night of September 8-9. It spread to at least 14 shops and reduced Rs 24 crore worth of fabric to ashes, police said. Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Karanraj Vaghela said Savle had worked for about three months at Shop No 639 starting April 2026. The Crime Branch scanned footage from several cameras installed under the Surat Police’s ‘Vishwas Project Phase-2’, stitching together the accused’s route from his entry into the market to his exit, police said.
Fire brigade personnel took hours to bring it under control, police said. The footage led investigators to Savle, a resident of Bilipatra Residency in Dindoli, police said. After the incident spread on social media and Savle learnt that an FIR had been registered, he switched off his mobile phone and left Surat with his wife and child, according to police. He first went to the Khatu Shyam temple in Rajasthan, and then to Ayodhya, police said.
