8 firemen held in Karipur case

KOZHIKODE: The police on Friday recorded the arrest of eight airport fire authority personnel for culpable homicide and for preventing the CISF staff from carrying out their duty.

Two senior fire authority officials who are undergoing treatment at a private hospital here would also be arrested under the same charges.

The Kondotty police acted on the basis of the visuals recorded by a CCTV near the gate. Cases were also registered against 100 CISF personnel for damaging public property at the airport.

The CISF has handed over two guns – a 9 mm pistol used by CISF inspector Seetharam Choudhary and an Insas rifle, which was carried by S.S. Yadav- to the Kondotty police. Yadav was killed by a bullet from the 9 mm pistol and the same bullet had pierced through the hand of Mr. Choudhary.

The CISF in its report has accused the fire authority people of preventing them from carrying out their duty and blamed them for the violence on Wednesday night. They also said that fire authority supervisor, Aji Kumar, who was injured and hospitalised, was drunk and had tried to assault Mr Seetharam Choudhary.

The Airport Authority Employees Union (AAEU) said the arrested fire service personnel were innocent and that the police had taken them into custody under the guise of providing them security from the furious CISF personnel.

“Now they have booked a case against them. This is not justifiable. Police are only recording one side of the story,” Mr Moris Roy, secretary, AAEU here said.

The arrested personnel have been charged under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 332 (voluntarily causing hurt and deterring a public servant from his duty). Only a case for damaging public property was registered against the CISF personnel.