Bangalore, November 3
In what has come as an embarrassment for the Bangalore police, the test report for the presence of any explosive in the kit bag of J&K Under-22 cricketer Pervez Rasool has shown negative results. The city police now wants to put the incident on the back burner so that it was gradually forgotten.
Rasool was detained by the police on October 17 after an explosive-detecting machine installed by a private security agency at the Chinnaswamy stadium indicated traces of explosives in his bag. A search of the bag, however, yielded nothing. The bag was then sent for forensic tests.
The J&K team, which had come to the city to play against Karnataka in the CK Naidu Trophy, was at first given accommodation inside the stadium complex. They moved out from there after the incident
and checked into a hotel where they spent the rest of their stay in the city.
Talking to the TNS today, Dr BM Mohan, director of the State Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) here, said “nothing had been found” on Rasool’s bag.
Asked if the explosive-detecting machine was faulty, Mohan said, “We cannot straightaway say that. One has to find out which substances were standardised for the machine and what exactly triggered off the alarm.”The cops, who had staunchly defended their action against the 21-year old cricketer, are now trying their best to buy time so that
the whole incident is forgotten. G Ramesh, DCP (Central), under whose jurisdiction the case falls, said the forensic report of the bag was still awaited.A similar reply was given by ACP Jitendranath, who is directly supervising the case.
“I am out of station now. I do not exactly know the details,” he said when contacted over the phone.FSL director Mohan, however, said he had sent the test report of the bag to the police “four to five
days back”.
