Thiruvananthapuram: A Youth Congress activist was arrested by the Crime Branch on Thursday for hurling firecrackers at the CPM headquarters, AKG Centre, here in June.
Attipra Youth Congress President Jithin has been taken into custody for questioning.
The Crime Branch confirmed that Jithin flung the low-intensity explosives inside the AKG Centre, Manorama News reported.
A forensic report stated that the explosives thrown were firecrackers.
The incident happened on the night of June 30. Explosives were thrown at the AKG Centre through a gate near its main entrance. Around seven policemen were on the premises at this time.
It is suspected that the person who hurled them reached the spot from the Kunnukuzhy area of the city.
The case was transferred to the Crime Branch in July after a special police team failed to nab the culprit after three weeks of investigation.
The police had scanned hundreds of CCTV footage, questioned about 250 suspects and checked more than 5,000 phone records. All that they could discover was the assailant reached the spot in a red Deo scooter. The investigation team couldn't identify the vehicle's number owing to the poor visuals from CCTV cameras installed at the nearby houses.
Case far from over
Even if a suspect has been identified, the government and the police still have many things to account for.
Mainly, why the policemen on duty near the AKG Centre, an area with the heaviest police presence in the capital city after Secretariat, Cliff House and Sree Padmanabha Swamy Temple, failed to go after the perpetrator once they heard the noise of the explosion, leave alone notice a motorist who had suspiciously stopped before the AKG Centre.
There is also LDF convener E P Jayarajan's hasty response. He right away declared that the act was carried out by the Congress. Even inside the party, it was felt that Jayarajan should have exercised restraint.
The Congress argument was that its cadre would not do such a thing on the day Rahul Gandhi had arrived in Kerala; Gandhi was then on a visit to Wayanad, in the wake of the SFI attack on his office. CPM sources say the accused himself had earlier revealed that the AKG Centre attack was revenge for the vandalising of Rahul Gandhi's office in Wayanad.
Senior leaders of the Congress now say the arrest of a Youth Congress leader was just an attempt to distract the public from the overwhelming response to the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
