Ola customer sets showroom on fire in Karnataka, arrested

A 26-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly setting fire to an Ola Electric showroom in Karnataka over unsatisfactory servicing of a recently purchased e-scooter, a police official said on Wednesday. The incident comes amid growing public ire over servicing at Ola Electric, India's no 1 e-scooter maker.

Several mechanics have said Ola service centres face significant backlog and are seeing facing difficulty in dealing with the volume of complaints.

Mohammad Nadeem, a mechanic by profession, bought the two-wheeler last month, a few days after which he brought it back for servicing on facing trouble with the scooter, the commissioner of police for Kalaburagi, a city some 570 kilometres from the tech capital of Bengaluru, said by telephone.

"The (servicing) response was not good, he went multiple times. Yesterday (Tuesday), when he went, he carried petrol and set fire to six bikes," he said. No one was injured in the incident, he said.

The police officer, Sharanappa S D, quantified the damage to the showroom to be worth Rs 850,000. Ola Electric, whichlistedon stock exchanges last month, did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. Ola has 431 service stations across India, according to its website.