The police, which had looked into the culpability of Prasobh, the second officer of ship, m.v. Prabhu Daya, found that the officer from Kerala was aware of the collision with the boat, but did not inform the incident to the ship's captain.
Alappuzha DySP, K.Mahesh Kumar, who is leading the Special Investigation Team (SIT) told The Hindu that the SIT had almost completed the investigation. Prasobh, who was on duty at the bridge of the ship at the time of the accident, had known about the collision but was not able to clearly see the fishing boat.
The 24-year old second officer from Ambalamukku in Thiruvananthapuram was disturbed after the incident. The police do not believe the statements of Prasobh in its totality and are likely to conclude that nobody had thrown him off the ship. But they are also trying to get the statement of the first accused given to Srilankan Navy, when he had fallen off the ship and rescued by Srilankan fishermen and their Navy off Trincomalee coast, before taking a final call on the issue.
The statement, the police believe, will be the first version of the accused on the incident and will in all probability be one closer to truth than what he will be narrating now.
The police, who got all the three accused together in their custody from Monday, questioned them. The police already have in custody Gordon Charles Pereira, captain of m.v. Prabhu Daya and the third accused till March 23 and Mayur Veerendra Kumar, seaman and second accused till March 20. The police, it is learnt, will be releasing all the accused as and when their current term of police custody expires.
