COIMBATORE: Six months after the murder of Hindu Munnai spokesperson, C Sasikumar, the Crime-Branch Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) has arrested a person on Wednesday.
A Syed Abudakker (30), a resident of Ukkadam, was booked under the section 302 (murder) of the IPC and remanded in judicial custody.
This was the man, a resident of KK Nagar in the city, was taken into custody by the CB-CID at gun point on Monday night. When he did not return home on Tuesday morning, his family and 200 member of the Popular Front of India (PFI), of which Syed was a member, besieged the Commissioner’s office demanding that the police should reveal the place where he was being held.
A top CB-CID official said they took him into custody as Syed had contacts with a person whom the police were ‘interested in’ in connection with the murder. The family then filed a petition under the section 97 (Search for persons wrongfully confined) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Hearing the case on Wednesday, the Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), K R Madurasekaran, has passed an order directing the Judicial Magistrate (JM) 3 to search the CB-CID office for Syed.
After an hour’s search, the magistrate confirmed the presence of Abudakeer at the office and directed the officials to remand him in front of judicial magistrate at the earliest.
CB-CID officials stated that the detention was legal as they had, contrary to Syed’s parents’ claim, Abudakker had been in their custody for not more than a few hours and that he would be remanded under judicial custody before 24 hours. While family members said that it was not the first time that Syed was taken into custody, as he was believed to be friends with two suspects in the case, B Saddam and A Mubarak, CB-CID announced that Syed has been arrested for the murder. Based on Syed’s connection with the suspects was how he came into the picture, said CB-CID DSP Bala Murugan.