'Criminal layers' behind Abhimayu murder, say police
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Kochi: The police team investigating the murder of Maharaja’s College student Abhimanyu suspect that the crime was carried out by a professional gang who masked their original identities from each other in order to prevent themselves from being caught.
The interrogation of J I Muhammad, the prime accused in the case who summoned the armed gang to the campus on the day of the murder, revealed that he did not know many of them personally. The police were hoping to unravel the conspiracy behind the murder with the arrest of Muhammad as they believed that he had full knowledge of the entire episode leading to Abhimanyu’s death.
However, the police could not gather any substantial lead from him about the main conspirator and the killer. The only person known to him who was directly linked to the crime was Muhammad Rif, a native of Kannur. The police are on the look out for six youths from Nettoor, who have gone into hiding.
The ploy to engage persons who are unknown to each other in an organised crime is to make the details of the criminal activity ambiguous. Even if some of the gang members land in the police net, it will not be easy to identify and trace down the other members. That is the reason why the police could not establish any vital evidence leading to the conspirators or the executioner despite arresting 13 of the gang members.
The crime took place about hundred meters away from the bungalow of the High Court chief justice and the district collector’s camp office, that are under round-the-clock police surveillance. It means they had a thorough understanding about the geography of the crime spot and the escape routes. The four members of the gang were assigned with the task of helping the murderers escape from the campus. Three of them have already been arrested. The police are tight-lipped about the remaining one, who is said to be hailing from West Kochi.
The modus operandi in Abhimanyu’s murder is eerily similar to that of Chekannur Moulavi and Chembirika Khazi murder cases. The CBI had found five criminal layers comprising persons unknown to each other in the Chekannur Moulavi case. The mystery behind the death of C M Abdulla Moulavi, Chembarika and Mangalore Khasi, remains unsolved even seven years after the body of the 74-year-old religious scholar was found on the Chembarika beach, close to his house.
There are different roles and levels of authority within the layers that include the conspirators, contractors, executioners, accomplices, destroyers of evidence, and those providing legal assistance to the criminals.