‘Wanted to teach owner a lesson’: Ex-accountant set fire to Surat textile market over pending Rs 10,000

A former accountant in a textile market of Surat, Vinod Salve, has been arrested for setting fire to the Shyam Sangini Textile market on September 9. The arson resulted in a significant loss of approximately Rs 24 crores. Salve, who was residing in Maharashtra’s Dhule district, had formerly worked as an accountant in the Shyam Sangini market.

Upon being interrogated, Salve admitted to intentionally setting fire to the market in an effort to "teach his former employer a lesson about the importance of money," according to the police. He alleged that he was owed Rs 10,000 in salary and that the owner refused to pay him despite multiple attempts to collect the amount. Salve claimed that the owner gave various excuses each time he visited the shop.

The fire started on the sixth floor of the six-story building at around 12:50 am on September 9. Fire department teams received a call around the same time and spent 14 hours extinguishing the blaze. The flames engulfed all shops on the affected floor, and some on the fifth floor were also impacted.

Salve was identified through CCTV footage that captured a masked individual sprinkling something on parcels of textile goods in a passage designated for delivery and then setting them ablaze. The footage showed the person inside the building for only four minutes after midnight on September 8.

The police received a tip-off about Salve's whereabouts and apprehended him in the Dindoli area, a largely migrant ghetto, on Monday. Before his arrest, Salve had purchased petrol a day prior and had visited Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh after the incident. He had worked as an accountant in the textile trading shop from April 2026, earning a monthly salary of Rs 30,000.

He reported that his senior accountant and the firm owner constantly criticized his work, causing him humiliation. Consequently, he resigned from his position a month prior and demanded the pending salary of Rs 10,000. Following numerous unsuccessful attempts to collect the amount, Salve formulated a plan to set fire to the parcels outside the shops for delivery at night, hoping to cause financial losses.

Additional Commissioner of Police Karanraj Vaghela stated that Salve had purchased petrol for Rs 150 from a pump in Dindoli a day before the fire incident. After entering the market after it closed, Salve sprinkled petrol on the parcels of sarees and dress materials placed on the passage area and ignited them. He then swiftly escaped the scene on his bike, avoiding his hometown to prevent police detection.

He traveled to Rajasthan, Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, and returned to Surat on Sunday night. The Surat crime branch subsequently handed Salve over to the Saroli police station for further investigation.