Saju, the prime accused in the JCB murder at Kattakkada in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram district, has surrendered before the police on Monday.
Police sources said Saju, who had been on the run after the murder on January 23 night, was the owner of the sand excavator that was used to fatally injure 36-year-old Sangeeth, who was killed for blocking the way of sand smugglers.
However, Saju's arrest has not yet been recorded. “It will be done after he is subjected to some detailed questioning,” a police source said.
Besides Saju, four persons involved in the murder are in police custody. The arrest of Aneesh and Lal Kumar alias Unni were recorded on January 26. They had allegedly helped the perpetrators to escape. Uthaman, the owner of a tipper lorry that was found at the spot at the moment of the crime, has also been nabbed. Vijin, driver of the JCB, had surrendered on January 24, the morning after Sangeeth was killed. He is said to be a close relative of Saju, the JCB's owner.
The presence of the tipper has slightly confused the probe team. “Eyewitness accounts say that it was the JCB that knocked Sangeeth down. But we have still not been able to fully rule out the role of the tipper in the killing. It might have been used at least to crush Sangeeth's car or even to threaten locals,” the policed source said.
Cops continue to stick to their initial version that a group of men attempting to smuggle sand from Sangeeth's plot in the cover of night had struck him down using the bucket of the sand excavator when he stood in their way and threatened to call the police.
Another possibility, the police said, was that Sangeeth could have been pressed to the perimeter wall of his plot using the tipper lorry. That Sangeeth had severe chest injuries had prompted the probe team to dwell hard on the tipper angle.
Both the vehicles - the tipper and the sand excavator - will be subjected to forensic analysis.
The cops want the case to be solved swiftly as there were allegations that it was not quick to act. Sangeeth's wife had said she had called the police around 12:30am on January 24 but the police team arrived only by 1:30am, after Sangeeth was attacked.
The sand smugglers were clawing mud from Sangeeth's 40-cent land behind his house near midnight on January 23 when his wife spotted them and informed her husband.
Sangeeth, a 36-year-old farmer and Gulf-returnee, tried to trap the men inside his plot but the gang killed him using the sand excavator.
Though neighbours and relatives rushed him to the hospital, Sangeeth could not be saved.