Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Police team that brought the accused in a train fire from Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri has come under attack for weak security compliance.
The three-member police team had to change four vehicles after three developed snags and had to wait for around 45 minutes on a road.
Three police team along with the accused Shahrukh Saifi started in an Innova car from Ratnagiri, and as soon as they entered the Kerala border, they shifted to another car. When travelling through Kannur district, one of the tyres got punctured. The team had to wait for around 45 minutes before another vehicle came to their help.
Until then Saifi, along with the three policemen, was waiting on the road and it was much later that police reinforcements came.
Another vehicle that came for their onward travel also developed a snag, and it was on the fourth vehicle that Saifi finally reached a police camp in Kozhikode around 5.45 am.
According to sources, Saifi is understood to have confessed to the police that he sprayed inflammable substance on fellow passengers and set them on fire after he was instigated by someone else. Earlier, his father had admitted that his son had gone missing and he had registered a complaint at the local police station in Shaheen Bagh in Delhi.
Saifi also admitted that it was his first visit to Kerala and on Sunday night he travelled on the same train after he set co-passengers on fire, which left three dead and nine injured.
After reaching Kannur he hid himself away from the public glare at the Kannur railway station and boarded another train on Monday night to Ratnagiri.
It was from there that he was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday by the Maharashtra Police after receiving inputs from Central agencies.
Admitted to hospital
Saifi was on Thursday diagnosed with jaundice after his medical examined at the Kozhikode Medical College hospital.
Following this, after a long discussion with the doctors, the chief of the Special Investigation Team in probing this case, ADGP M.R. Ajithkumar decided that Shahrukh Saifi, 24, should be admitted in the hospital and he has now been kept in a special cell there.
According to the pictures that have come out, his face is bruised and it is understood that he suffered burn injuries when he threw petrol on co-passengers and lit them up.
Leader of Opposition V.D.Satheesan on Thursday lambasted the state police for failing to nab Kerala train arson accused Saifi in the state.
“Had the police acted timely, they could have taken the accused - a resident of Shaheen Bagh New Delhi - into custody,” he stated.
Alleging weak security compliance while getting the accused from Ratnagiri, the Congress leader said never before was a criminal brought in such a “lax” manner.
