With the arrest of Kavitha G Pillai, the main accused in the medical college admission scam, it is once again proved that Wayanad, once the hotbed of the Naxalite movement, is a safe place to hide, or the absconders from other parts of the State believe so.
Kavitha, who allegedly duped parents and students of about ` 6 crore by offering seats in self-financing medical colleges, was the latest addition to the list of persons who chose the largely underpopulated Wayanad to go into hiding.
A native of Edathua in Alappuzha district, Kavitha was nabbed by the Thirunelly police on Saturday from a lodge in Thirunelly where she was staying under a false name for the past few days.
In June, following an intense combing operation in the district, a police team from Thiruvananthpuram had arrested ‘Karate’ Suresh, an accused in 19 cases, including three murders in the state capital. Suresh was reportedly leading a normal farmer’s life by cultivating ginger and other crops in a land owned by him near Pulpally. The police were on the lookout for him since 2009.
Another Thiruvanathapuram-based gang leader and a wanted man, Attingal Ayyappan, is believed to be owning a farmland in the district where he holds meetings with his accomplices often, according to police sources. Several arrests warrants have been pending against him since 2000, and according to the police, after becoming a fugitive he was operating from the Gulf using a fake passport.