A West Bengal native suspected of having key involvement in the murder of Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Swapan Majhi and his two associates in Gopalpur grama panchayat was detained from a migrant labourers’ camp in Kozhikode on Thursday night.
Rafikul Sardar, the suspect who reportedly fled from his hometown after the incident last month, was staying along with some of his close friends here to avoid police investigation.
The 40-year-old, hailing from West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, was tracked with the support of a hi-tech crime investigation cell. Both the Kozhikode City police and the special squad from West Bengal were part of the investigation to track him after zeroing in on some of the suspected hideouts near Meenchanda and Panniyankara areas.
Three other migrant workers were also booked on the charge of facilitating his stay. Though they claimed that they were ignorant of his criminal activity, the police did not buy the argument. Subsequent to the arrest, the police also verified the whereabouts of all the other members in the camp and details of their work.
It was on July 7, 2022 that the TMC leader, who was a local panchayat member, and two other party workers—Jhantu Halder and Bhootnath Pramanik—were shot dead by a gang of four men within the limits of Canning police station. The suspects who reportedly carried lethal weapons had attempted to behead the bodies apart from hurling crude bombs. Rafikul Sardar was the prime suspect in the case who was found absconding after the incident.
