B’luru: Dhaba owner’s wife turns out to be mastermind behind arson attack

Bengaluru: Police investigating the arson attack at a Dhaba, which claimed the life of an employee, have found that the dhaba owner’s wife was the mastermind behind the incident.

Sheetal, the wife of dhaba owner Arpit, and her accomplices — rowdy sheeter Manukumar, Hemanth Kumar, and Manjunath — have been arrested in this connection.

The Dhaba, located in Doddabyalakere was being run in partnership by Deepak, Arpit, and Sachin. On December 24 a 29-year-old employee of the dhaba died due to burn injuries when miscreants set fire to the roadside restaurant.

Police investigations revealed that Sheetal planned the arson attack to settle scores with her husband Arpit. Arpit and Sheetal had married in February. However, Arpit was concerned about his dhaba business and was not visiting home properly. This led to quarrels among the couple. In June, Arpit sent Sheetal to her parent’s home and began staying back at the dhaba during the night. There was hardly any conversation between the couple from the last six months, police said.

In the meantime, Sheetal met one of her old classmates Manukumar, a rowdy sheeter, and confided in him about the marital discord and sought his help to resolve the issue. Manu Kumar told her that as Arpit was sidelining her because of the dhaba, and if it were not to exist then he would start spending time with her.

Based on his advice Sheetal gave a supari to Manukumar’s accomplices Hemanth and Manjunath to set fire to the dhaba.

On December 23, Hemanth and Manjunath visited the dhaba and had their dinner. When the employees asked to pay for the bill around the closing time a verbal altercation ensued between the employees and the duo. Later that night, miscreants set the eatery on fire. Manoj who came out of the dhaba to investigate the sound was caught in the flames. He died at a hospital later.

Initially, the incident was thought to be carried out as an act of rage by the customers who fought with the employees here.