RSS leader’s murder: NIA nabs key conspirator on arrival from Tanzania

NIA arrests PFI member Ghouse Nayazi, key conspirator in 2016 murder of RSS leader Rudresh in Bengaluru.

MUMBAI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday arrested Ghouse Nayazi, a Popular Front of India (PFI) member and the alleged key conspirator in the 2016 murder of RSS leader from Karnataka, R Rudresh. Nayazi was nabbed upon his arrival at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Airport in Mumbai from Dar es Salaam, a commercial port town in Tanzania. The NIA team was lying in wait for him at the airport following a tip-off, the agency said in a release issued on Saturday.

NIA said Rudresh’s murder was part of a larger conspiracy.

Rudresh, a 35-year-old RSS leader from Shivajinagar in Bengaluru was hacked to death on a busy street in the city on October 16, 2016, allegedly by four members of the now banned PFI including Nayazi. The NIA’s probe revealed that Rudresh’s murder was part of a larger conspiracy hatched by Nayazi, then president of the party in the Hebbal assembly constituency, and one Asim Sheriff.

The duo, the agency claimed, motivated the four assailants to kill Rudresh with an intention to strike terror among the members of the RSS, the BJP, and the society at large. They hacked the RSS leader to death in full public view after being told that the fight against the RSS was a “holy war,” officials said.

The trial of the remaining accused in the case (Sheriff and the four assailants – Mohammed Sadiq, 35; Waseem Ahmed, 32; Irfan Pasha, 32; and Mohammed Mujeebullah, 41) is underway before the NIA special court in Bengaluru.