The Special Investigation Team led by S. Sasidharan, Deputy Commissioner (Kochi City), probing the multiple explosions at a crowded Jehovah’s Witnesses prayer convention in Kalamassery on Sunday (October 29) continue to interrogate Martin Dominic, the sole suspect to have surrendered before the police in Thrissur within hours after the incident, at the Kalamassery Police Armed Reserve camp.
At last count, three were killed while scores of injured were undergoing treatment in various hospitals in Kochi, especially for burn injuries.
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A team of the National Security Guards (NSG) also interrogated the suspect as part of their preliminary investigation. The NSG team then went to the convention centre where they were conducting investigations with the help of the forensic experts and the local police.
Martin Dominicn is set to be taken to the crime scene for evidence collection. The police are likely to record his arrest later in the day after medical examination.
The SIT continues to verify the self-incriminating evidences produced by the suspect, including the videos he reportedly shot using his mobile phone of the explosions at the convention centre. According to initial reports, Martin bought the materials to assemble the crude Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and detonators used to trigger them from various places on his own. He, reportedly, even had the bills of the materials he had bought and police are learnt to have tracked down the places where he had bought the materials.
He had reportedly used high impact crackers from Tripunithura and petrol from a pump in Kochi. Contrary to initial reports that IEDs were placed in tiffin box, it is now reportedly emerging that they were probably places in plastic covers. Initial reports suggest that, four IEDs and battery-based remote detonator were assembled by the suspect on his own primarily with the help of social media platform YouTube. Though the suspect claimed he had planned and pulled of the explosion on his own, the police were verifying whether he had aides.
The suspect claims to have assembled the IEDs at his home in Kochi before planting them at the convention centre in Kalamassery just before the prayer convention started on Sunday. The police were collecting details about his online footprint and verifying whether this was his first such experiment of assembling IEDs. Since he had been abroad for considerable time, his connections there may also be looked into.
Meanwhile, it is not yet clear whether the investigation will be taken over by central agencies like the National Investigation Agency.
