Wadala residents wake up to find bikes burnt

Residents of a housing complex in Wadala were shocked on Wednesday morning when they discovered that the seats of their bikes were burnt.

Residents of D-7 building in Mhada Colony at Wadala Truck Terminal found that eight of their bikes parked in the complex premises were badly damaged by fire.

There have been several cases of chain snatching, theft, illegal trespassing and eve teasing in the locality, which has a large number of slums located nearby.

The housing complex residents have been in conflict with residents of nearby slums for the past several years, as slum dwellers have been damaging the boundary wall of the complex. On several occasions, they had also tried to trespass into the complex premises.

A resident said: “The slum dwellers do not want the boundary wall of the complex to be intact so that they can extend the slums onto our land. Though the person who is responsible for burning the bike seats is unidentified, someone from the slums could be behind it.”

Police officials have registered a case of causing mischief by fire or explosive substance with the intent of causing damage. They are in search of the unidentified accused, who could be a group of youngsters having committed the crime for fun.

Police are questioning people from the locality to get details and clues about the accused involved. The crime has been committed between 2 and 5 am. The intention of the accused was clear. He wanted to damage the bikes and not any other vehicles like cars and taxis which were parked in the complex premises.

Three years ago, the Juhu police had busted a gang of teenagers who damaged committed similar crimes. They would damage the colour of cars by making graffiti on them using permanent colour sprays.

The teenagers were all from affluent families residing in Juhu. Upon arrest, they revealed that they committed the crimes for fun.