The CBI on Thursday took into custody nine CPI(M) men, including local leaders, in the case pertaining to the murder of local Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) leader Payyoli Manoj in 2012 at Payyoli near Vadakara in Kozhikode district.
The agency took the CPI(M) men into custody after calling them to its camp office in Vadakara for questioning. The local police had not been informed of the CBI move, according to sources. The CBI took them to Kochi immediately after taking them into custody and they are expected to be produced before a court in Kochi on Friday.
Those held on Thursday included the CPI(M)’s former Payyoli area committee secretary Chandu Master, local committee secretary PV Ramachandran, committee member C Suresh, municipal councilor lijesh and party local committee member NC Musthafa, also a local leader of the DYFI.
The CBI had taken over the investigation into the murder of Manoj one-and-a-half years ago. A large gang of masked men had attacked Manoj’s house on the night of February 12, 2012 and hacked him brutally in front of his mother and wife. Manoj, Payyoli unit secretary of the BMS, succumbed to the injuries at the Medical College Hospital in Kozhikode later.
The local police who probed the murder had arrested 14 persons. However, after being released on bail, they and their relatives claimed that they had nothing to do with the killing and that they were victims of the CPI(M)’s betrayal, putting the Marxist party leadership in an indefensible situation.
Though the case was taken over by the Crime Branch of the Kerala Police later, Manoj’s relatives and friends alleged that the probe was not on the right track after serious contradictions came up between its findings and those of the local police. The CBI took over the case after Manoj’s friend Sajad moved the court.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M) called for a dawn-to-dusk protest shutdown in Payyoli on Friday alleging that the CBI had taken innocents into custody.