A kalabu family lost their entire possessions worth about $31,000 after a neighbour set fire to their house.
According to an article published in the The Fiji Times on May 11, 1990, a 20-year-old man was to appear before the Suva court on a charge of arson.
The corrugated iron house belonging to USP employee Parshu Ram was set on fire at about 4.30pm. There was no one at home at the time.
Mr Sharma told this paper the day before he had gone to Nausori to pick up his wife and three children from his in-laws’ home and came back at 4.45pm to find his house gutted and all their belongings destroyed.
He said the man responsible was a neighbour who got drunk, brought benzine from a bowser and set the house on fire.
“I am very frightened. I’ve lost everything I collected in the past 11 years. I just don’t know why it happened,” a distraught Mr Sharma said.
He said he had no enemies in the neighbourhood and nobody with whom he had a quarrel or an argument.
“The man came to me in the morning and asked for a match to light a cigarette. I gave it to him, and he went away,” Mr Sharma recalled.
After setting fire to the house, the man went to another neighbour and admitted to the crime.
Meanwhile, the homeless Mr Sharma at the time was living with friends while his family were with his in-laws.
