NEW DELHI : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday arrested another accused from Mumbai airport in the Praveen Nettaru murder case.
The accused Riyaz Yousaf Haaralli alias Riyaz was arrested from Mumbai airport while he was trying to flee abroad, said NIA.
Riyaz, is the 19th accused so far arrested in the case relating to the gruesome murder of Nettaru, said the NIA, adding his arrest comes less than a month after another absconder, Mustafa Paichar, was nabbed along with one of his harborers, Mansoor Pasha.
Praveen Nettaru, a BJP Yuva Morcha district executive committee member, was brutally hacked to death by two motorcycle-borne assailants in Bellare village of Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka by cadres of the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) in July 2022.
The attack was aimed at striking terror among a section of people in society, NIA investigations have shown.
According to NIA investigations, Riyaz returned to India from abroad on the direction of absconding accused Abdul Rahman.
The agency further said that Riyaz, along with Mansoor Pasha, had provided logistical support and a safe hideout to Mustafa Paichar in Sakleshpura, Hassan district, Karnataka.
Paichar, the secretary of PFI Puttur district and the head of the Puttur district service team was the chief conspirator in the case.
He had assembled the hit team that targeted the victim and, after the crime, had absconded along with others.
He was finally traced and arrested by the NIA from Sakleshpura on May 10 this year, along with Mansoor Pasha.
NIA, which took over the investigation on August 4, 2022, has so far filed a charge sheet against 21 accused persons.
The agency is continuing with its manhunt to track the other absconders. (ANI)