A second case of arson in the same train two months apart has left Kerala in shock and the authorities baffled.
The blaze erupted early on Thursday in a coach of the Alappuzha-Kannur Executive Express that was parked in a yard just 100 metres from a massive motor fuel storage facility of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
The train was empty, locked and parked away for the pre-dawn departure to Alappuzha, 330km to the south of the state.
The earlier incident on April 2 had left three passengers dead and nine with severe burn injuries after Shahrukh Saify, 25, a native of Delhi, sprayed petrol and sparked a blaze in the running train.
A security camera visual from the BPCL facility showed a grainy image of a person walking to the parked coach carrying something at 1.04am on Thursday. The fire was spotted at 1.20am.
The massive blaze that gutted the coach was brought under control around 2.20am and the area was sealed as part of the investigation.
The city police deployed sniffer dogs and forensic experts to pick any possible lead to identify the cause of the fire, which is yet to be established.
Sources said the investigating team was trying to identify the person in the security camera footage by scouring all such cameras from nearby facilities that might have captured the person while heading to the coach or while returning from the railway yard.
In the earlier incident, just two months ago, the same train was set ablaze shortly after it departed from Kozhikode and headed to its destination in Kannur.
According to eyewitnesses and victims, Saify had fished out two bottles containing petrol from his backpack soon after the train left Kozhikode and sprayed the petrol on passengers on either side of the aisle before lighting a match when the train had just arrived at Elathur, a short distance away from the Kozhikode station.
The leader of the Opposition, V.D. Satheesan of the Congress, alleged serious security lapses. “Everyone is feeling insecure since it’s the same train that has caught fire again,” he told reporters.
