THALAASSERY: In a major breakthrough in the probe into the murder of Elamthottathil Manoj, the district ‘Saririk Sikshak Pramukh’ of the RSS, the Crime Branch special probe team on Monday night arrested a CPM activist.
C Prakasan, the managing director of Patyam Social Service Society, is the arrested. He was booked on charges of assisting Vikraman, the key suspect in the case, to go in hiding, the police sources said.
According to police, Prakasan with the assistance of a CPM activist Ramachandran took Vikraman to a cooperative hospital in Payyanur where he was given treatment for injuries. Vikraman had stayed in Payyanur and Kannur after the incident, the police said.
According to police, Vikraman was taken to Kannur in a blue Innova car after the incident. From Kannur he was shifted to an Alto car and taken to Payyannur. “Prakashan followed him in the official vehicle of the society, a Mahindra Bolero bearing the registration number KL 58 C 1717 to Payyanur. The vehicle is registered in the name of CPM district secretary P Jayarajan. After the treatment at Payyanur Vikraman returned to Kannur a day before he surrendered before the Magistrate.
“He stayed in the outskirts of Kannur in the night and reached Kannur town in a goods autorickshaw on the day of surrender. And he reached the court riding on pillion of a two-wheeler,” police said.
Police added that Vikraman had earlier underwent treatment for de-addiction in Bangalore.
There are unconfirmed reports that the man who rode the two-wheeler carrying Vikraman to the court was also taken into custody.
With the arrest of Prakasan, a close aid of CPM district leaders, it has become obvious that the party would land in further crisis after the T P Chandrasekharan murder case.
Meanwhile, a district leader of the CPM reportedly intimidated one of the DySPs of the probe team over phone for taking a local leader of the party into custody. The leader reportedly warned the DySP against taking the suspect into custody.
CPM district secretary P Jayarajan called for an independent probe into the murder case. He slammed the government decision to slap the UAPA on the suspects in the case and urged the Chief Minister and the Home Minister to explain the reasons for the same.
The CPM district secretary said, “UAPA has been slapped on suspects in the murder of an RSS leader as part of Oommen Chandy government’s move to encourage the communal forces.
“The government should stay away from the attempts to hunt CPM activists and an unbiased probe should be instituted in Manoj murder case,” Jayarajan added.
The probe team had served notices on several local leaders of the CPM during the last few days and many branch secretaries of the party and Kathirur local committee secretary had appeared before the probe team.