The Hindu : Kerala News : Godowns of cracker shop raided

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Friday, Apr 13, 2007
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Kerala

Godowns of cracker shop raided

Staff Reporter

Investigators collect samples, assess quantity of firecrackers stocked

SEARCHING FOR CLUES: Officials searching a firecracker godown during a raid in Kozhikode on Thursday.

Kozhikode: A joint team of the Crime Branch Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) Special Investigation Group (SIG)- III and the State Forensic Science Department on Thursday carried out raids on the firecracker godowns of the Kerala Stationery Mart, wholesale firecracker shop, from where the fire started and engulfed the commercial street of the city last week.

Raids were conducted on three godowns at Chinthavalappu and Kalluthankadavu in the city. Sleuths found that one of the godowns at Kalluthankadavu was functioning illegally.

A case was registered in this connection. The investigators also collected samples from all the three godowns and assessed the quantity of firecrackers stocked at these places.

CB-CID SIG-III Superintendent of Police T.P. Mohandas and State Forensic Assistant Director P.D. Somarajan led the raids. Whether the firecrackers contained the banned potassium chlorate would be ascertained after an examination, Mr. Somarajan said.

Meanwhile, the five-member team of the Central Forensic Science Laboratory continued the collection of samples from the debris at the blast site as well as the Kozhikode beach, where a large quantity of the debris were dumped. The team is led by director S.R. Singh.

Detailed examination

A detailed examination of the samples collected from the debris will be carried out at the laboratories in New Delhi. However, the team also visited the Kozhikode Regional Chemical Examiners Laboratory to identify a suspected heavy metal.

A heavy metal is any of a number of higher atomic weight elements, which has the properties of a metallic substance at room temperature.

The forensic team, which arrived on Tuesday, will fly back to New Delhi on Friday. On Thursday, it also held a meeting with Additional Director General of Police (Crimes) Kundan Singh Jangpangi and North Zone Inspector General of Police M.N. Krishnamurthy.

Mr. Jangpangi reiterated that the report of the Central team would be the basis for ascertaining the exact cause of the fire that broke out at the wholesale cracker shop.

"But it will take almost a month for the forensic experts to submit a detailed report about their analysis. Apart from conducting tests at the laboratories there are also a lot of procedures involved such as getting the samples marked from the court," he said.

However, he said that the ongoing probe in the incident would continue in full swing. Officers of the CB-CID, another unit of the Crime Branch, will also assist in the investigations.

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