The Bengaluru city police on Monday invoked the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against the five accused in the murder of RSS worker Rudresh.
UAPA is generally invoked in terror-related cases. The five arrested -- Irfan Pasha, Waseem Ahmed, Mohammed Sadiq alias Mohammed Mazar, Mohammed Mujeebullah alias Moula alias Mujeeb and Asim Shariff - have been booked under section 15 (terrorist act), 16 (punishment for terrorist act), 17 (punishment for raising funds for terrorist act), 18 (punishment for conspiracy) and 20 (punishment for being a member of a terrorist gang or organisation), along with other sections of the IPC, reported Deccan Chornicle.
The police, however, have not stated the nature of the terror activities the accused were involved in or which terror outfit they were affiliated to.
"During the course of the investigation, we found that the arrested accused have a tendency to commit offences and create fear in the minds of the people. Also, it has been found that a few others are involved in the case. Hence we have booked them under UAPA and IPC. We have submitted the chargesheet to the court," police said.
The police are also of the view that the accused will not obtain bail easily as they have been booked under UAPA. "It also helps our investigation while coordinating and seeking information from police of other states," a senior police official said.
Meanwhile, a special team from the Tamil Nadu Crime Branch (Criminal Investigation Department) CB-CID along with the Kerala and Andhra Pradesh police were in Bengaluru on November 7, 2016 to question Irfan Pasha and his aides in the murder of RSS worker Rudresh.
The CB-CID officials were probing the suspects' possible links to terror group in the their respective states.
"We want to see if there is any similarity between the murder of Rudresh and Sasikumar, the Hindu Munani functionary, who was hacked to death in Coimbatore in September. Our officers will scan the CCTV footage to see if the accused were in Coimbatore," a senior official from CB-CID told The Hindu.