The Payyoli police on Thursday recorded the arrest of two police personnel, including an assistant sub inspector, involved in buying liquor from Mahe while escorting a convict in the murder of Revolutionary Marxist Party leader T.P. Chandrasekharan on Wednesday.
Assistant sub inspector K. Shekaran, 49, and senior civil police officer T.P. Mohanakumar, 45, were charged with Section 58 of the Kerala Abkari Act.
They were produced before the Payyoli First Class Judicial Magistrate Court on Thursday and remanded in judicial custody for 14 days.
Both of them were placed under suspension along with three others pending inquiry. The others were civil police officers Joemon and Sarish, and driver Antony, all attached to the Armed Reserve Camp, Thrissur.
The caseThe police team was escorting K.K. Muhammed Shafi from the Viyyur Central Prison to the Kannur Judicial First Class Magistrate Court. While returning, they stopped their vehicle at a liquor outlet at Mahe and bought two bottles of liquor.
Mohammed Shafi, fifth accused, was part of a seven-member gang involved in the killing of Chandrasekharan at Onchiyam on May 4, 2012.
The Special Additional Sessions Court (Marad Cases) in January had awarded life imprisonment to him. He was since then lodged at the Viyyur Central Prison.
In the newsThe convict was also in the news for updating his Facebook account when he was a remand prisoner at the Kozhikode district jail.
Incidentally, this was the third incident in which a police team escorting accused in the Chandrasekharan murder case flouted guidelines and ran afoul of the law.
Three police personnel were suspended in November last for facilitating a meeting between P. Mohanan, CPI(M) leader and then a remand prisoner in the murder case, and his wife K.K. Lathika, MLA, at a restaurant.
Another incident related to the escort team helping the accused P.K. Kunhanandan and Karayi Rajan meet CPI(M) leaders at Thalassery while they were being brought from the Kannur Central prison to Kozhikode.
