Nearly two weeks after 19-year-old SFI leader Abhimanyu was stabbed to death in Ernakulam, the police have nabbed yet another accused.
Campus Front of India (CFI) district committee member Adhil was nabbed late on Saturday night. The police is reportedly yet to record Adhil's arrest.
According to the Special Investigating Team (SIT) probing the case, Adhil was directly involved in executing the crime. With Adhil's arrest, this is the first time that the police team have been able to nab a person who was directly involved in carrying out the crime.
According to Asianet News, Adhil has told the police that it was an argument about painting slogans on a wall, that had left to the murder. As per Adhil's statement to the investigating team, CFI had allegedly decided that they would paint the wall and not allow SFI to do so. If the argument escalated, they were even prepared to 'face' it and therefore, some of them had carried weapons. Police say that Adhil was involved in the conspiracy in stabbing Abhimanyu.
20-year-old Adhil, a native of Aluva, had been absconding ever since Abhimanyu's murder. While some reports state that Adhil was nabbed from Kannur, the police have not confirmed this.
The police believe that there are at least 15 members in the gang that attacked Abhimanyu and it was a man named Muhammad who stabbed him to death.
So far, the police have arrested nine people including Anoop, Nizar, Bilal, Farooq and Riyaz and detained several others in the case.
Earlier this week, the police had made a massive crackdown on SDPI workers, reportedly detaining several people across the state.
The police had also questioned two SDPI workers - Riyas and Niyas - who were earlier acquitted in Professor TJ Joseph's hand-chopping case.
It has been a loss of face for the police that they had not been able to nab anyone who had been directly involved in the crime. With Adhil's arrest, the first big break through has been made.
Meanwhile, Arjun, a student of Maharaja's college and an SFI member who sustained stab injuries in the attack, was discharged from the hospital on Saturday. Taking to Facebook, the 19-year-old student of Philosophy wrote that he was not scared of communal forces.
"I am not scared of any communal forces and will continue to study in Maharaja's as an SFI member," Arjun wrote in Malayalam.