Pune: The Dehu Road police on Sunday registered a case against a 62-year-old farmer on the charge of attempting to set his cousin’s house on fire by throwing petrol bombs. The incident happened in the early hours of Sunday at Dehugaon, when the 74-year-old complainant and his wife were fast asleep.“Major tragedy averted as the complainant’s wife woke up and noticed petrol bombs inside their house. Before the accused could light the petrol bombs with a torch, the woman raised an alarm. The accused fled from the spot,” senior police inspector Vikram Bansode of the Dehu Road police told TOI.The officer said that the complainant and the accused are cousins. They have a dispute over five gunthas of land in the Dehu Road area for last few years. “The accused pressured his cousin,who owns educational institutions and farms, to vacate the plot, claiming it as ancestral property,” the officer said.Bansode said the accused reached his cousin’s bungalow in the early hours of Sunday, smashed the dining room and kitchen windows by pelting stones, and hurled five petrol bombs inside. He was about to throw a lit torch when the complainant’s wife spotted him and raised an alarm. The complainant later lodged a police complaint, and a case was registered under Sections 109, 324 and 326 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). “The accused fled the city after the incident and we are searching for him,” he said.
