Role of Enrica Lexie captain to be probed

KOLLAM: The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Court here on Thursday asked the Special Investigation Team(SIT), probing into the killing of the two Indian fishermen off the Alappuzha coast on February 15, to conduct a thorough probe to decide whether the captain of the ship ‘Enrica Lexie’ could be held accountable for the incident. Interestingly, CJM A K Gopakumar’s directive came while disposing of the private petition filed by the AIADMK state secretary Sreenivasan Venugopal seeking the inclusion of captain among the accused. The court stated that the petition cannot be maintained since the petitioner had no locus standi to file it and neither was he an aggrieved nor an interested party in the case. It is the prerogative of the investigative officer to decide on whether the captain should be included as an accused or not, the court observed.However, considering the importance of this incident, the court raised certain vital questions to be answered by the investigating agency.The court asked the SIT whether the accused marines had the authority to shoot without orders from a higher officer; was there any higher official present on the ship and if so did he give any orders to shoot; were the marines under the control of the captain in the matter of using guns and if so, did the captain issue orders for firing; who was the custodian of the weapons when the ship was passing through our territorial waters- the captain, any other higher officer or the marines; did the captain of the ship change the course of journey after the incident and if he did so, what was the motive; and had the captain informed the incident to any Indian authority concerned.The court sought the probe team to clarify whether the captain had any role in the incident so as to bring him under the purview of section 34 of IPC (criminal act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention).