The Kerala police team probing the murder of Popular Front of India (PFI) leader A Subair on Tuesday recorded the arrest of three persons who were taken into custody on Monday.
The arrested are Arumughan, Saravanan and Ramesh, all RSS workers. ADGP Vijay Sakhare, who is coordinating the investigation, said Ramesh was the main conspirator behind the crime. He said Subair was killed to avenge the murder of Sanjith, another RSS worker. Manoj was a good friend of Sanjith. The accused had attempted to kill Subair earlier also, but then they had to abort the plan as a police vehicle came their way unexpectedly, the officer said.
The ADGP said Sanjith had told Manoj that Subair would be responsible if something happened to him.
The police think that only the three arrested people were directly involved in the murder. However, the probe into the conspiracy will continue.
Arumughan and Saravanan had fled from the scene of crime in a vehicle rented by Ramesh. The car the alleged killers, Arumughan and Saravanan, had used to knock down Subair, who was riding a two-wheeler with his father seated behind, was reportedly registered in the name of Sanjith, the RSS worker who was killed in November.
Subair, who was thrown off his two-wheeler, was repeatedly hacked and, according to the police, the killers got into the car driven by Ramesh. This car was then found abandoned at Kanjikode. The identity of the killers were exposed when the police scoured the CCTV visuals collected from the area at Kanjikode where the vehicle was found abandoned. These CCTV visuals show three people walking along the side of the NH after perhaps abandoning the car is now doing the rounds in social media.
ADGP Vijay Sakhare, who is in charge of the investigation into the Palakkad murders, had earlier in the day said that the police had established the identity of the killers and had clinching evidence to move against them.
While Popular Front of India leader Subair was hacked to death on April 16, RSS activist and former district Shareerik Shikshan Pramukh A Sreenivasan was killed, in what seemed like a retaliatory attack, on the very next day.
In the case of Sreenivasan's killing, the police have closed in on six people. The identities of four and their connection to the murder have been established. "However, we need to confirm the identities of two," Sakhare told reporters in Palakkad on Monday.
He hinted that the arrests of Sreenivasan's alleged assailants, too, would happen soon. Sakhara also refuted earlier rumours that some of the assailants had left Kerala after committing the deed.
The ADGP also confirmed what was already very sharply suspected. That the culprits involved in both the killings belong to either the Social Democratic Party of India or the RSS. "These culprits are members of either of these two organisations, either the PFI-SDPI or the RSS-BJP," the ADGP said.
Sakhare said that the police had identified all the culprits in the Subair case. "We have have traced their modus operandi and know where they are now," the ADGP said. As for Sreenivasan's killers, he said the police has "almost fully" understood how the crime was committed and by whom.
The ADGP said that the police probe was focused on finding the "conspirators" behind the two killings. "We know these people we have identified now are just the foot soldiers. Our investigation is to find out the conspirators and those who harboured these criminals and provided them with logistical support," the ADGP said.