Canning triple murder case: WB police arrests prime accused from Kerala
The mastermind of the murder, Rafikul Sardar (40), has been arrested from Kozhikode in Kerala and he is being brought back to West Bengal for interrogation
West Bengal police on Friday arrested the prime accused from Kerala in the Canning triple murder case.
A Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and two workers were murdered in West Bengal last month. (File image)
A Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader and two workers were murdered in West Bengal last month.
“The mastermind of the murder, Rafikul Sardar (40), has been arrested from Kozhikode in Kerala. He is being brought back to West Bengal for interrogation,” said a senior police official of Baruipur police district.
A TMC panchayat member Swapan Majhi and two other party workers Jhantu Halder and Bhootnath Pramanik were shot dead and hacked by four assailants at Canning, around 50km south west of Kolkata, on July 7.
The assailants even tried to behead the bodies and threw a crude bomb which never exploded. The police had named six people in the FIR.
“A few others were arrested in the case earlier. Sardar has confessed to the crime during preliminary interrogation. He was working as a mason at a construction site in Kozhikode,” the police official said.
A team of the Baruipur police, which have been tracking the case, traced him after locating his mobile tower and inputs from villagers in Canning.
While the ruling TMC had alleged that people backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were behind the murder, the opposition party had hit back saying the killings were the fallout of the TMC’s factional feuds ahead of the panchayat polls, scheduled in 2023.