Stray bullet: Police approach FSL to speed up ballistic examination
KOCHI: The police probing the case in which a fisherman in sea was hit by a stray bullet off Fort Kochi a few weeks ago on his ear, approached the Forensic Science Lab (FSL) to speed up the ballistic examination. An officer said the city police have sent a priority letter to the FSL to complete the examination quickly. Though the Navy denied its involvement, the police were not ready to rule it out as they found that the bullet recovered from the boat resembled the one used in the Insas rifle, which the Navy reportedly used for firing practice at the time of the incident.
“The investigation will progress only if we get the report from the FSL. Since the bullet was fired from an Insas Rifle, we are sure it was from the Navy. But we need to prove it scientifically. In order to speed it up, we have sent a priority letter to FSL so that they will be able to focus more on this case,” said a police officer on condition of anonymity. The police recovered 12 Insas rifles from the Navy and handed them over to the FSL a couple of weeks ago.
“The FSL has to carry out firing from each rifle. Stereo microscopes have to be used to determine the basic class characteristics of fired bullets. It may take some time to complete. Since we handed over the rifles a few weeks ago, we hope the report will be ready by this week,” said the officer.
So far, the police have identified 77 officers who were at the firing range during the time of the accident. If the ballistic examination proves the role of the Navy, more officers will have to be questioned.
On September 7, Sebastian, 70, a resident of Maneechira, Pallithode, near Chellanam, suffered an injury to his earlobe after being hit by a bullet nearly 2km off INS Dronacharya in Fort Kochi. The fishermen who recovered the bullet had alleged that the .2mm bullet was fired from INS Dronacharya, the gunnery school of the Indian Navy.