In the latest development in the Puttingal mishap in Kerala, the crime branch could not gather evidence to support the claim by the temple committee members that they had met the district collector to seek permission for the fireworks display.

This comes after the investigators found the CCTV cameras covering the collector’s chamber to be defunct.

This investigation was undertaken as crime branch officials received information that the committee members had met the collector A Shainamol on April 8 and April 9, asking for permission to conduct the fireworks display.

The officials could not find any footage of the said meeting at the collector’s chamber after examining the hard disks recovered from the CCTV room. They said that visuals could not be obtained for that particular date as the CCTV cameras were defunct for a long time. Out of the 15 CCTV cameras installed at the civil station, only the wicket gate cameras were found to be functional, they explained. The hard disks ideally save footages of up to 20 days.

It was also found that the camera that was supposed to cover the collector’s chamber had been out of order for over six months. 

Following this, Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash came out in support of collector A Shainamol and stated that Keltron - the firm which had installed the CCTV cameras in the collector’s office - had been informed earlier about the malfunctioning cameras but had failed to take any action.

“The collector can’t be crucified over this,” Prakash said.

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