Police search PFI offices in Malappuram

Police today searched a few centres of Islamic outfit Popular Front of India in Malappuram district as it intensified its hunt to arrest the prime accused in the killing of an SFI leader at a college in Kochi earlier this week.

At least 12 accused in the case including a leader of Campus Front, the student offshoot of PFI, in Ernakulam Maharajas College are still at large, nearly a week after the killing of second-year student Abhimanyu.

Six persons have been arrested so far in connection with the killing of the student leader, police said.

As part of its campaign against the alleged assailants, police have raided offices and homes of leaders of PFI and its allied outfits including SDPI and Campus Front in the state and its workers have been put on preventive arrest.

Police said searches were carried out Satyasarani and Green Valley, two key centres of PFI in Malappuram district.

Senior police officers overseeing the investigation said their probe was going in the right direction but refused to elaborate.

Ernakulam Range I-G Vijay Sakhare held the meeting of the police officers part of probe team to evaluate the progress in the investigation, sources said.

SDPI has justified the killing of 20-year-old student from a poor Tamil tribal hamlet from backward hill region of Idukki district, saying the attack was not one-sided and the death of Abhimanyu happened when the activists of Campus Front defended themselves.

Police have said only two or three students belonging to Campus Front were part of the gang of around 15 persons allegedly involved in violent attacks on SFI workers over a minor issue of graffiti on the college wall.

The CPM has alleged that rest of the attackers were either workers of PFI or SDPI.

The SFI leader was stabbed to death and two others were injured in an attack allegedly by members of a pro-Islamic outfit at the Maharajas College in Ernakulam on July 1 night.