The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested one more person in connection with the murder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionary Sreenivasan.
Shihab, aka Babu, a former member of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI), was picked up from his house in Malappuram. A press statement issued by the NIA in Delhi on Friday said that Mr. Shihab had been on the run since the slaying of Sreenivasan at Melamuri, Palakkad, on April 16, 2022.
Sreenivasan was hacked to death by a six-member gang of PFI men while he was sitting at his shop at Melamuri around 1.30 p.m. on April 16, 2022. The murder was in apparent retaliation for the killing of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI) worker A. Mohammed Subair the previous day (April 15, 2022) at Elappully, near Palakkad.
Subair was hacked to death by a gang of RSS men while he was returning from Juma prayers along with his father Aboobacker on a bike on the Vishu day. Subair’s murder took place about 200 metres away from his house.
Apparently in retaliation for the murder, the PFI members targeted Sreenivasan the very next day. It was found that a group of PFI men planned the retaliation at a ground behind the General Hospital morgue here, where Subair’s body had been kept, on the night of April 15, 2022.
The police team that investigated Subair’s murder submitted their chargesheet before a court here on July 11, 2022. There were nine accused in the case. The police team that investigated Sreenivasan’s murder too submitted their chargesheet two days later on July 13, 2022. There were 26 accused in the case. However, the NIA took over Sreenivasan’s murder case in early February this year, and many more PFI functionaries were included in the chargesheet.
The NIA statement said that Mr. Shihab was “an integral part of the terror ecosystem being operated by the PFI, which was responsible for orchestrating the murder of Srinivasan. It is believed that Shihab, acting in line with a conspiracy hatched by the PFI leaders, harboured Muhammed Hakeem, who, at the behest of the PFI leadership, was responsible for the destruction of crucial evidence in the case.”
The NIA filed a chargesheet against 59 former PFI workers on March 17. The NIA statement said that the agency could so far identify 69 persons as being involved in the conspiracy to kill Sreenivasan.
