Vizag Fishing Harbour Blaze: Police Zero in on Two Accused Persons

Visakhapatnam: The police have made a headway in the Vizag fishing harbour incident which destroyed 40 boats in fire last week. After analysing the CCTV footage retrieved from the jetty area, the police suspect Vasupalli Nani was responsible for setting the boats on fire. It is believed that the accused set the boat on fire in the state of intoxication. 

According to the CCTV footage analysis, two persons were seen at 10.49 pm in the jetty area and the fire broke out in an area near the Visakhapatnam Container Terminal and an Indian Oil Corporation facility at 10.50 pm on the night of November 19, 2023. 

The police have identified Vasupalli Nani and Allipilli Satyam as the two prime accused in the boat fire incident. Nani, who was working on the jetty, and Satyam, both were drunk, started cooking salted fish around the harbour area on the night of the incident  and the sparks quickly spread and dozens of boats completely gutted and nine others were partially damaged in the blaze. 

Visakhapatnam Police Commissioner Ravi Shankar told media persons that during investigation  it was found that both Nani and Satyam had come to the harbour to consume liquor in the evening. Later, they cooked salted fish in the boat number 997 owned by Allipilli Venkatesh. One of them smoked a cigarette and tossed the hot cigarette butt on a nearby boat number 815 which resulted in a huge fire.

Due to the majority of the defunct CCTV cameras in the jetty area, the police had trouble in solving the case. Finally, the police got visuals from a working CCTV and noticed that two persons had a party just before the fire incident and were seen fleeing the spot after the fire engulfed the boats anchored near the container terminal.

Nani is working as a cook while Satyam is a watchman on the boat. The police have charged the duo under various sections of Indian penal code. Earlier, the police had picked up several persons for questioning. The police had called a YouTuber who goes by the name Nani as part of the investigation. He owned two  boats which were destroyed in the fire. He had uploaded the video of the fire incident in the jetty area on his YouTube channel. 

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