KOLLAM: Exactly a year after the brutal attack on Mathrubhumi reporter VB Unnithan, the key player in the case who remained a mere whisper all through the crime branch investigation, Crime Branch DySP N Abdul Rasheed, was finally nabbed by the CBI on Monday. The arrest came after a CBI investigation, led by Additional SP Jayakumar, gathered evidence on the involvement of the DySP in the conspiracy to engage quotation gang to attack Unnithan. Even though there were enough leads that pointed to Rasheed’s role in the conspiracy, following the arrest of his close friends businessman Container Santhosh and colleague DySP Santhosh Nair, he remained untouched during the Crime Branch probe led by DIG S Sreejith.One of the accused, Container Santhosh had even told mediapersons while surrendering before the Thiruvalla First Class Judicial Magistrate Court, on May last year that he was trapped in the case by Santhosh Nair and Rasheed.The political influence of Abdul Rasheed, who is the state president of Kerala Police Service Officers and being a close relative of a senior congress leader in the district, understandably kept him out of trouble.The Rajadhani Express chain-pulling incident which occurred in December, 2010, turned out to be the key in establishing the close relationship of Rasheed with Container Santhosh.According to sources the report on the incident by Unnithan was a major provocation, especially for Rasheed to engage a quotation gang to murder the scribe.Container Santhosh, Rasheed and another DySP presumed to be Santhosh Nair, with their family had made a leisure trip to Goa during the Christmas holidays of December, 2010. On their return journey by Rajadhani Express which had no stop at Kollam, Rasheed allegedly pulled the chain to stop the train and got down with his family to board a police vehicle waiting for them. Though a case was registered by the RPF, the probe into the chain-pulling incident has not reached anywhere.A report that appeared in the Mathrubhumi daily on the following day had named the DySPs involved in the incident.This increased their ire against Unnithan, who was already in the black book of many senior police officers who were put in poor light through his reports.Unnithan had reported about a liquor party at the Asramam Government Guest house attended by four police officers including Santhosh Nair. He had reported that police officers along with an ‘abkari’ and two film stars were engaged in immoral activities. The duo assigned Container Santhosh to find a quotation gang to teach Unnithan a lesson and thus quotation gang leader Happy Rajesh entered the scene. In an interesting turn of events, the prime suspect Happy Rajesh was murdered 11 days after the attack on the scribe.More arrests can be expected in the following days in connection with the case.Meanwhile, the arrested, Santhosh Nair and Container Santhosh and other quotation gang members, are out on bail.
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