Surat mock drill shooting an accident: official

GANDHINAGAR - Gujarat Director General of Police S.S. Khandwawala has termed the shoot-out at Surat during a mock drill when an official of the state’s Anti-Terrorist Squad was injured as an “accident”, and said a dual enquiry was on to fix responsibility.

Khandwawala was speaking to mediapersons here Monday in a bid to cap the controversy raging since Feb 24 when Inspector Shabbir Ali Saiyed of the ATS took a bullet from Deputy commissioner of Police Subhash Trivedi during a mock drill at the Surat airport for checking preparedness to deal with a terror attack.

The inspector was rushed to hospital and is recovering.

Khandwawala cautioned the media against communalizing the matter and said he had spoken to the injured inspector for over half an hour. “Trivedi confirms it was an accident and was so disturbed by media reports appearing in his name that at one point of time he wanted to resign his job, the DGP added.

Khandwawala said that while the Surat police was investigating the case under the direct supervision of the Commissioner of Police Shivanand Jha, the ATS chief Ajay Tomar was probing the lapse on how a live bullet was fired, even if by mistake.

The preliminary report of the ATS chief terms it an accident and a final report is awaited. A ballistic expert from the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL) here is also part of the investigation, he added.