Fazal, Subeesh (inset)Kannur: In a sudden turn of events, an activist of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) reportedly confessed to have been involved in the murder of National Development Front (NDF) worker Mohammed Fazal at Thalassery ten years ago.
According to the police, the shocking revelation was made by Subeesh, an RSS worker hailing from Chembra near Mahi, during custodial interrogation in connection with the murder of CPM Paduvilayi local committee member K. Mohanan last month.
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The disclosure by Subeesh has given a fresh twist to the Fazal murder as the CBI had arrested eight CPM activists, including Thiruvangad local secretary Karayi Chandrasekharan and Thalassery councilor and Kannur district secretariat member Karayi Rajan in connection with the case.
The agency had also filed a chargesheet at the Ernakulum Chief Judicial Magistrate Court in which Rajan and Chandrasekharan are the seventh and the eighth accused respectively.
Fazal was hacked to death by a group of people on the JT Road in Thalassery on October 22, 2006.
Subeesh confessed to the police that he was part of a four-member RSS team, which murdered Fazal a day after clashes between activists of the BJP and the NDF at Madapeedika on the outskirts of Thalassery.
Subeesh reportedly told his interrogators that political animosity, triggered by the NDF’s efforts to gain a foothold in the area, was the provocation behind the murder. He further revealed to them the identity of the other three members of the gang and how they carried out the grisly murder. The three of them are natives of Chembra, Madapeedika and Azhiyoor, the police sources said.
As per his confessional statement, the killing was not carried out with the connivance of BJP leaders, but they were informed about the role of party activists in the crime soon after the incident.
He also confessed to the police that the same group was behind the murder of CPM leaders Pavithran of Kannavam and Jejesh of Madapeedika.
The video footage and audiotapes of Subeesh’s confessions have been handed over to DGP Loknath Behera, police sources said.
The latest information will be passed on to the CBI at the earliest, they added.
The CBI, in the chargesheet, had accused the CPM of trying to implicate the RSS for Fazal’s murder in order to instigate riots.
The investigating agency, which arrested six other CPM workers, booked the Karayi brothers under charges of criminal conspiracy.
The CBI court had granted conditional bail to both of them. They were released on bail on condition that they should not leave Ernakulam district.
Both of them had contested the last local body polls and emerged victorious with huge margins. They had also sworn in as chairmen of Kannur District Panchayat and the Thalassery Municipality respectively, but resigned within weeks after the court denied them permission to leave Ernakulam.
