Kerala train blaze: Accused Shahrukh Saifi sent to 11 days police custody

KERALA: In a day of fast-paced developments, the prime suspect in the Kerala train fire case, which claimed three lives, was on Friday first sent to 14-day judicial custody and hours later, produced at a local court in Kozhikode where the police probe team was granted his custody for 11 days.

Accused of setting fellow passengers ablaze on a moving train, Shahrukh Saifi, 24, was, since Thursday morning, undergoing treatment at Kozhikode Medical College hospital.

He was hospitalised after being taken into custody from Maharashtra’s Ratnagiri as he had suffered injuries and his bilirubin levels were high.

On Thursday, after the medical examination tests revealed that he had suspected jaundice, he was admitted to the hospital and on Friday morning, a local magistrate arrived at the hospital and decided to send Saifi to judicial custody.

Soon after the magistrate left, the medical board met and after assessing the medical condition of Saifi, decided that he could be discharged.

The police then decided to apply for custodial interrogation and moved the papers for it and in the evening got his custody for 11 days. The court asked the police to produce him before a medical team on Monday.

With Saifi finally in custody of the Kerala Police probe team, they expect to unravel the case and for that they will have to take him for evidence collection to a few places at Kozhikode, Kannur, and then to Ratnagiri from where he was arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad with the help of Central agencies on Wednesday.

Saifi was driven down to Kozhikode and arrived at a police camp at around 5.45 a.m. on Thursday.

It was on Sunday night that Saifi, hailing from Delhi, doused petrol on fellow passengers and set them afire while the train was moving from Kozhikode to Kannur.

Three people, including a two-year-old girl, died after they panicked and jumped out of the moving train. Nine others suffered burn injuries.

Earlier on Friday, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, presently touring his home district of Kannur, visited the familu of the two-year-old girl and then, of her aunt, who also died on Sunday, and handed over an ex-gratia payment of Rs 5 lakh to both families.