Half-burnt undergarment helps identify man who was charred to death in parked car

BENGALURU: The city police have managed to identify the man, whose charred body was found in a car a few days ago, with the help of a half-burnt undergarment on his person.

On March 29, an old car had caught fire at a garbage dump at Devinagar near Kodigehalli. In CCTV footage, the car could be seen engulfed in flames. The locals called fire personnel after seeing the fire and after the fire was put out, the charred body of a man was found inside. After a week of investigation, the Kodigehalli police have identified the deceased as Vinod.

The individual who charred to death after a car engulfed in a fire was identified as Vinod.

Vinod was married, but stayed away from his wife and lived with his mother in Doddabomasandra. He was an alcoholic and slept in the streets after getting inebriated. On March 29, he got drunk again and slept in the old car parked in Devinagara. To protect himself from mosquito bites, he had lit a mosquito repellent coil and placed it on the rear seat of the car.

The burning mosquito repellent coil fell on the seat cushion, resulting in the fire. Since Vinod was heavily drunk, he was charred to death in his sleep. The police circulated the CCTV footage and photos of half-burnt undergarments on social media following which his mother and sister identified the body.

Laxmi Prasad, DCP of the North East Division in Bengaluru City.

“On March 29 night, we got information that a car was engulfed in fire. The fire personnel put out the fire, and we found a charred body in the seat. After postmortem examination, it was found that it was a man in the 40-45 age group. We found a half-burnt undergarment in the car. We took pictures of it and circulated it in a WhatsApp group. At the same time, we verified missing person’s complaints. We analysed the CCTV footage and identified the man”, said Laxmi Prasad, DCP of the North East Division.