The Kerala Police on Thursday took into custody Muhammad Rifa, State secretary of the Campus Front of India (CFI), students’ wing of Islamist Popular Front of India (PFI), in the case pertaining to the brutal murder of a 20-year-old activist of pro-CPI(M) student outfit SFI at Kochi’s Maharaja’s College on July 1 allegedly by workers of the Campus Front and PFI’s political arm Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
According to police, Rifa, a second-year llB student at a private college near Kochi, was one of the chief conspirators behind the murder of SFI activist Abhimanyu and he himself had led the SDPI’s killer gang to the college campus on the night of the incident. A native of Thalassery, Kannur, Rifa was held from Bangalore where he was hiding after the incident.
Police sources said a meeting of the Campus Front’s Ernakulam district committee in which Rifa had taken part had decided to confront the SFI in Maharaja’s College in order to gain a foothold for it. The meeting had also allegedly decided that even methods that evoked fear could be used to attain this objective.
SFI worker Abhimanyu, a second-year degree student hailing from Vattavada village in Idukki district, was stabbed to death allegedly by Campus Front and SDPI workers at July 1 midnight following a conflict over sticking posters to welcome newly admitted students.
The SFI worker was stabbed in the chest and the knife had pierced his heart causing instant death.
Another SFI activist, Arjun, had been seriously injured in the Campus Front-SDPI attack. The police have also learned that it was Rifa who had led the Campus Front-SDPI killer gang to the campus from a facility at Ernakulam North after a message arrived from Maharaja’s College following the dispute over poster-sticking.
Rifa had left Kochi immediately after the incident and had gone into hiding in Karnataka with the help of Popular Front workers there, according to the police sources. They now believe that questioning the Campus Front leader could yield valid information about the other conspirators and killers remaining to be nabbed.
Police had on Wednesday taken into custody Saneesh (28), a native of Palluruthy, Kochi, who had brought a four-man group of SDPI workers to Maharaja’s College campus from his place on the day of the incident. On Thursday, another person, Fazaluddin from Kochi, who had allegedly provided help to the accused surrendered before a court.
Police have so far held 15 Campus Front-SDPI activists including eight who had directly participated in the incident in connection with Abhimanyu’s murder. Of these eight persons, three were allegedly leaders of the killer gang. A minimum of 30 SDPI-PFI workers are said to be currently in their custody at different police stations.
According to police, there were 15 members in the gang that had unleashed terror at the Maharaja’s College campus on July 1. The investigators have reportedly identified the person who had stabbed Abhimanyu and they believe that Muhammad Rifa could provide them with information that could lead to his arrest and that of other involved.