CHENNAI: A newly-formed group of Muslim fundamentalists, not an established terrorist outfit, is responsible for the murder of Hindu Munnani leader K P S Suresh Kumar, investigators have concluded.
A senior officer on Friday said investigators had unravelled the plot a month after the assassination, with the arrest of two suspects from a hideout in Chennai on Thursday night.
The Hindu Munnani Tiruvallur district unit chief was hacked to death on June 18, for a hate speech at a public meeting in Avadi on December 12, 2013.
A magistrate court’s on Friday remanded in judicial custody suspects K Quidbuddin, 24, of Cuddalore, and J Naseer alias Naseer Jalaluddin, 33, of Periyar Nagar in Padi. Police have sought their custody for 20 days to complete their investigation.
“We ruled out the involvement of Al-Umma and other fundamentalist outfits in the murder after sustained interrogation of the suspects,” the officer said.
Quidbuddin, a resident of Portonova near Cuddalore and a BCom graduate, worked in a cellphone repair shop in Padi. Jalaluddin worked in a cellphone recharge shop in Ambattur.
The two men and their accomplices were united by the fundamentalist ideology of Al-Umma and other terror groups and joined hands to eliminate Suresh Kumar, an investigating officer said.
“We are searching for others who planned and executed the murder,” the officer said. “Investigators have identified at least six men including Khaja Mohideen, of Cuddalore, who were part of the plot or carried out the murder.”
Quidbuddin and Jalaluddin apparently aided the killers by accompanying them to Ambattur and identifying Suresh Kumar. The assailants cornered Suresh Kumar, a native of Kanyakumari, and attacked him with cleavers in front of his shop near Ambattur Industrial Estate bus terminus.
Four months prior to the slaying, the Hindu Munnani office in Chintadripet on February 22 received a letter stating that leaders of the outfit in Tambaram, Tiruvallur and Chennai would be targeted and killed.