Police arrest prime accused in SDPI activist’s murder

Mangaluru, Jun 26: Dakshina Kannada district police probing the murder of SDPI activist Mohammed Ashraf Kalai last week, arrested the prime accused Divyaraj Shetty on Monday. With this, the number of persons arrested in connection with the case rise to six. Police had arrested five persons on Saturday.

Divyaraj along with another rowdy sheeter Bharat Kumdelu had hatched the murder plot and participated in the brutal killing, SP C H Sudheer Kumar Reddy said.

Stating that efforts are on to nab Bharat, with whom RSS leader Kalladka Prabhakar Bhat shared a dias, the SP said that Divyaraj will be interrogated with the other accused to ascertain their exact roles in the crime. "We are almost through with the interrogation of the other five accused, and will no longer need their custody for time being," he noted.

The jurisdictional court incidentally had remanded the five accused - Pavan Kumar, 24 of Pudu village, Bantwal; Santosh, 23 of Thumbe village; Shivaprasad, 24 of Bollari house, Thumbe; Ranjith, 28, resident of Pudu village and Abhin Rai, 23 of Thenkabellur village - to three days of police custody on Saturday. Police top brass giving out details of the incident had maintained the murder was committed with an intention to create communal unrest in the district.

Except Santosh all the five accused arrested on Saturday have criminal cases against them. Abhin Rai was booked during Tipu Jayanti violence in Bantwal last year and a case was booked against Pavan in 2012 for defiling a religious place in Bantwal to create communal tension. Police said the murder plan was hatched a month ago and it was discussed at various places.

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