House in K.Huraa Maldives Burnt

MALE, August 25, 2007 (Haveeru News Service) -- A house in Kaafu atoll Huraa was torched early Thursday morning following threats and warnings to the residents for supporting a presidential system of governance and the ruling Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP), police said.No one was injured in the fire that completely destroyed Shaanee Villa house in Huraa. The fire had broken out around 3:00am Thursday. According to the owner of the house Easa Ahmed, who is also the Vice President of the DRP’s Huraa branch, nothing other than the clothes that he, his three children and wife had been wearing to sleep had been saved in the fire.“By the time the fire was extinguished, everything in the house had been destroyed,” Easa said while talking over the phone to Haveeru reporters. “Everything in the house including any electronic item, and all the money has been turned to ash. I think more than Rf 300,000 (about US$23,500) in damages was caused by the fire. The electronic items alone in the house would have cost around Rf 100,000.”He said that the fire had been set by dousing the front door with petrol and diesel oil, and that the plastic containers used to store the petrol and diesel had been found outside the house.“My three kids, I and my wife were sleeping in the same room when my six-year-old woke up, saying that there was a strong smell of petrol about the house. Then when I went out I found that all the doors to the outside had been separately set on fire. I even saw a petrol can outside the door. So I went back inside our room and broke the small window in the attached toilet and climbed out onto the roofless room next to it. Then everyone used the window to climb out to the uncovered room. We were able to get to safety when some people broke down the wall to the room.”He also said that when he had tried to pour water on the fire he had found that someone had turned off the water to the house also. Easa said that four nights before the fire had broken out they had found a threatening note inside the house. Another note had been found in the open-air toilet in the house on Wednesday night also. “The first warning letter had been found one day after the voting had finished,” he said. “The note said: ‘Easa, don’t be so supportive of DRP. What has (President) Maumoon given to the island? We could separate you into three parts, just like the three powers are separated in the presidential system.’ The note found Wedesday night said: ‘Don’t be so supportive of DRP, Easa. Don’t imagine that this will suffice. Come back to your senses and quit DRP before it’s too late.’ The water had been turned off on both nights that the warning letters were found.”Police also said that a threatening note had been found inside Shaanee Villa on Wednesday night. They said that they have found some evidence that the cause of the fire was arson and that five people had been arrested in connection with the ongoing investigation. Police also said that they had been able to extinguish the fire around 5:30am with the help of some residents of Huraa and Four Seasons Resort island nearby.