According to the police, the assailants had waylaid the RSS district leader as he was travelling by car with another person and hacked him on September 1.
According to the police, the assailants had waylaid the RSS district leader as he was travelling by car with another person and hacked him on September 1.The State government has issued a notification referring the murder of E. Manoj, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) functionary in Kannur, allegedly by Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] activists, to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)
The notification is a follow-up of the decision to refer the case to CBI for further investigation. The State government has forwarded the notification to the Centre. The notification would pave the way for a decision by the CBI on taking up the investigation into the case. Since the BJP-RSS leaderships have already demanded a CBI probe into the case, the CBI might well agree to take it up.
According to the police, the assailants had waylaid the RSS district leader as he was travelling by car with another person and hacked him on September 1 after throwing bombs to create terror. The State government had handed over investigation into the case to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by ADGP S. Ananthakrishnan. The RSS-BJP had contended that the State police investigation would not help unravel the truth about the murder as there was a conspiracy that led to it.
The State police had invoked Section 15(1) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in the case, which, it was hoped, would facilitate takeover of the case by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) without too many procedural formalities. But the NIA would normally take up only cases having terrorist angle. This is said to be the reason for the government deciding not to wait any further and issue the notification referring the case for CBI investigation. K. Vikraman, the prime suspect in the case, had surrendered dramatically before the Judicial First Class Magistrate, Kannur, on Thursday and is currently in Crime Branch custody.