KANNUR: Four members of a gang who hacked two persons to death at the Thalassery Cooperative Hospital were arrested around 1.30 pm on Thursday at Iritty. The arrested are Parayi Babu, 47, who is the main accused, Sujith Kumar, 45, Arun Kumar, 38, and E K Sandeep, 38.
The police had on Wednesday arrested three persons, Jackson Vincent, 28, K Naveen, 32, and Muhammad Farhan, 29, in connection with the murder. With four persons landing in the police net in Iritty, a total of seven persons have been arrested in connection with the twin murder so far. The police took the gang into custody by blocking the vehicle in which they were trying to escape from the district at Iritty by putting up barricades on the road.
Though the police had tried to stop the vehicle at Koottupuzha police aid post, the gang did not stop the vehicle there.
On Wednesday, two persons, Khalid, 52, of Nettur near Thalassery, and his brother-in-law P Shameer, 40, were killed by the drug mafia.
They were called out of Thalassery Cooperative Hospital where Shameer’s son was admitted after being attacked by the drug mafia, and hacked to death. Shameer was a member of CPM Nettur branch committee.
After committing the murder, Parayi Babu and Sujith, fled to Karnataka along with Arun Kumar and Sandeep in a car. Thalassery police identified the vehicle and got information that the gang crossed the border and entered Karnataka, after checking the CCTV camera at the check-post at Koottupuzha.
But, the gang tried to return to Kannur in the afternoon as the Karnataka police too had strengthened inspection following information from Kerala Police. On their return, Kerala Police tried to stop them at Koottupuzha, but they sped past and drove toward Iritty. As the police had identified the vehicle and passed on the information to Iritty police, the gang was stopped on the road by putting up barricades.