Kozhikode train arson | Suspect taken into custody from Maharashtra

Shahrook Saifi, the prime suspect in the Kozhikode train arson case, has been taken into custody from Maharashtra.

 Shahrook Saifi, the prime suspect in the Kozhikode train arson case, has been taken into custody from Maharashtra. The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the case said the 30-year-old was detained from Ratnagiri by Maharashtra’s Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) on Wednesday based on a sketch and other identifiable details released by the Kerala police.

The suspected arsonist was at large after he escaped from the crime spot Sunday night after setting fire to Coach D1 of the Alappuzha Kannur Executive Express at 9.30 p.m. Sources said the man, who was zeroed in based on the eyewitnesses’ account, was detained by the Maharashtra ATS while he was travelling by a local train. The Special Investigation team from Kerala would reach the spot soon to secure his custody and carry out further interrogation, they said.

Sources said the suspect would be interrogated by the National Investigation Agency and the State’s Anti-Terror Squad in the wake of preliminary investigation reports that it was a premeditated attack and there were attempts to mislead the police with a set of abandoned articles. Soon after confirming his custody, the Government Railway Police and the SIT started efforts to collect the CCTV grabs from various railway stations and other suspected boarding points to unravel the other further details of his travel.

Some of the social media accounts and telephone numbers that the suspected man used in the past had been tracked by the SIT in their efforts to locate him at the earliest.

There were also confusion regarding the credibility of the accessed stuff as there were suspicious attempts to create misleading evidence. Noticing the same, a team of officers had even reached Madhya Pradesh to verify the suspected man’s whereabouts. SIT sources said the detained man would be brought to Kozhikode by Wednesday evening for collecting further evidence in the case.