BENGALURU: Police officers investigating RSS worker Rudresh’s murder suspect that the four arrested men had links with the members of banned outfit Al-Ummah.
The members were allegedly involved in five low-intensity blasts in court complexes in southern India since April.
Police sources said, “The decision to kill an emerging Hindu outfit worker and to bomb court complexes were discussed in a meeting held in Northern Kerala and Irfan Pasha, one of the accused in the murder case, had attended it.
The plot was also discussed during a wedding of an outfit member. But they had not specifically discussed about killing Rudresh then. The accused were involved in multiple organisations including Al-Ummah.”
Investigating officials said that accused have not been co-operating during questioning and that they were finding it difficult to extract information from the trio.
An official said, “It was Irfan Pasha who selected Rudresh’s name and chalked out the plan to kill his as he was emerging as one of the prominent RSS leader in Shivajinagar and other areas. After killing Rudresh, the accused allegedly fled to Kerala and then travelled to Kuppam in Chittoor district in Andra Pradesh. We have circumstantial evidence that suggests Irfan had been to Kerala before and after killing Rudresh. The accused returned to the city assuming that police may not have got any evidence to arrest them. However, the police had kept the video footage that helped them identify the accused confidential.”
Police sources also said, “We had suspected that the murder could be a retaliation to a previous incident. We now evidence from the Malappuram court blast that shows that it was a retaliation to UP’s Dadri lynching case. But the Rudresh case was a clear message to intimidate RSS and other right wing outfits. Rudresh had also had verbal exchanges with a few members of the minority community over several issues.”
Rudresh was murdered on October 16. Ten days later, the city police arrested Mohammed Sadiq, Mohammed Mazar, Mohammed Mujibullah, Waseem Ahmed and Irfan Pasha for being involved in the case.