RJ murder: Two key accused arrested

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a major breakthrough in the RJ Rajesh murder case, the probe team on Tuesday arrested two key accused, who allegedly participated in the crime. The arrested have been identified as Mohammed Salih, 26, of Ochira and Thanseer, 26, of Karunagappally.
Mohammed Salih, who goes by the name Salih Bin Jalal on Facebook, is arraigned as the first accused in the case while Thanseer is the third accused.

Salih was held when he arrived at Trivandrum International Airport from Doha in a Jet Airways flight on Tuesday morning around 9am. Since the police had issued a lookout circular in his name to all airports in the country, the immigration officials could identify him and detain him. Following this, the members of the special investigation team led by Attingal DSP P Anilkumar reached the airport and secured his custody. He was taken to the DSP’s office at Attingal, where his arrest was recorded.

Thanseer was nabbed from Karunagappally. He was a pickup auto driver by profession and a long-time acquaintance of Salih.

Following the arrest, Salih told the cops that the murder was a hit job ordered by his employer Abdul Sathar, an NRI businessman based in Qatar. He also said that he took up the job as he was indebted to Sathar for providing him a job and thus helping to elevate his life standards.

Rajesh was allegedly in an extramarital relationship with Sathar’s wife. This affected the marital harmony between Sathar and his wife. He lost his focus and as a result incurred huge losses in his business. Even though the couple went in separate ways, Sathar nursed strong grudge towards Rajesh for destroying his personal life.

‘’It was Sathar, who took Salih to Qatar and provided him a job and hence the latter felt indebted to the former,’’ said DSP P Anilkumar. So he agreed to finish off Rajesh when Sathar expressed his wish around two months ago.

On March 18 he reached Kathmandu in a flight. He then took a bus to Delhi and stayed there a couple of days. From Delhi he took a flight to Bangalore, where he met Yaseen,a BTech student, whose arrest was recorded on Sunday. He stayed there a few days more in the accommodation arranged by Yaseen and then came to Kollam in a car. There, he stayed at the residence of Sanu, who was the first person to be arrested in connection with the case. The other accused, Thanseer and Appunni joined him there under the pretext of a gettogether party of members of a WhatsApp group of which they were part of. A few unsuspecting members of the group too had joined them in the party and Salih introduced himself before them as Alibhai.

On March 27, Salih, Thanseer and Appunni reached Madavaoor and allegedly attacked and killed Rajesh using sharp weapons. With Tuesday’s arrests, the number of persons arrested in the case has gone up to five. Appunni is still absconding. Efforts are on to summon Sathar and arrest him.

Police sources said that even though the department had initiated steps to bring Sathar and Salih here through the process of extradition, the sudden arrival of Salih here was owing to the pressure tactics by cops, who informed his sponsor in Qatar regarding the case through Interpol.