Police yet to extract adequate information about train fire suspect's motive
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Thiruvananthapuram: Despite the lapse of 11 days after a compartment in a train bound for Kannur was set on fire by a Delhi youth, who has since been arrested, police are yet to report any progress worth the name in the investigation.
Although the chase after the culprit, Shahrukh Saifi, hailing from Noida yielded result and the suspect was nabbed from Maharashtra, police are still reported to be questioning him with not much information extracted from him. The lack of such information has led to speculations of all sorts among the public.
In view of the baffling nature of the suspect's motives behind torching a train coach using petrol carried in bottles which killed three people, the investigation team is tight-lipped about the details of the interrogation. However, IANS said that according to sources Saifi was travelling alone from Delhi. He took a ticket to Kozhikode in Kerala, but got down at Shoranur on April 2 morning. Such details by themselves alone do not tell anything definite about the motive of the crime.
Then till he boarded the train to Kannur on Sunday late evening. He spent time at Shoranur from where he purchased petrol from a fuel filling station, which has also been identified. The auto driver, who took Saifi there, confirmed this with the probe team.
After the train that he boarded from Shoranur left Kozhikode, Saifi entered the D-1 coach and poured petrol on the passengers and set them on fire.
While three passengers in fright jumped out of the moving train, who were later reported dead on the impact of the fall, nine others also suffered burn injuries.
Saifi then reached Kannur on the same train and after a few hours boarded another train and reached Ratnagiri in Maharashtra.
He was arrested in Ratnagiri by a team of the Anti-Terror Squad of Maharashtra Police based on a tip-off from Central agencies on April 5.
The next day he was brought to Kozhikode and after a day in the hospital, he has been in the custody of the Kerala Police probe team.
In the remand report, the police have held Saifi responsible for the death of the three including a young girl, though he has said he was not responsible for it.
Meanwhile, the NIA, according to sources, is also closely monitoring the ongoing probe and the likelihood of the agency taking over the case is high.
(Based on IANS feed with minor edits)