Five persons, including three teenagers, have been arrested in connection with the murder of a polytechnic student from Marudham Nagar on Monday evening.

Tension prevailed at Keezha Munneerpallam and Marudham Nagar after J. Raja, 16, was murdered by an armed gang. Police investigation revealed that flowers sprinkled during a funeral procession recently were thrown into the houses of a people belonging to the community of Raja. It triggered heated argument between both sides as they belonged to different castes. The issue was settled in the presence of police.

Since Raja vehemently argued with those who sprinkled the flowers, they decided to murder him. Shankar, 20, Arunachalam, 19, and three teens aged below 18, decided to eliminate Raja and executed their plan when he was returning on his motorcycle from his polytechnic.

The murder triggered tension and relatives of Raja and his community members staged a protest and refused to accept the body, demanding the immediate arrest of those involved in the crime.

Though the police picked up 19 persons for interrogation, two of them were let off within next few hours and the remaining 17 were grilled for two days. Later the police zeroed in on the five.