Chennai, July 20 (UNI) Further widening the probe, the CB-CID police have arrested a Councillor of the Opposition AIADMK in connection with the murder of BSP Tamil Nadu Unit President K.Armstrong on Saturday evening following which he was expelled from the party immediately.
The arrested AIADMK man was identified as Haridharan, who is the Kadambathur panchayat third ward Councillor in Tiruvallur West district.
He was arrested on charges of having the mobile phone of one of the accused Arul, on whose account the arrested and already expelled AIADMK functionary Malarkodi has transferred a large amount of money in connection with the murder.
Haridharan was said to have thrown the mobile phone in the cooum river in Thiruvallur and police after prolonged search operations located it along with four more phones, which were said to have been used in the murder.
With this a total of 16 suspects were arrested in the case.
They included advocates and functionaries of the ruling DMK, main Opposition AIADMK, BJP and TMC, police sources said.
Sources said so far 16 were arrested and Selvaraj, one of the accused, was not arrested on Thursday, but was one of those among 11 held earlier after Armstrong’s murder.
Soon after his arrest, Haridharan was expelled from the AIADMK.
A statement issued by AIADMK General Secretary and Leader of the Opposition Edappadi K.Palaniswami late this evening said, since Haridharan has acted in a manner that brought disrepute to the party and violated party discipline and rules, he was expelled from the primary membership of the party.
He was the second AIADMK functionary to be arrested after Advocate Malarkodi, also an history-sheeter yesterday.
Police are scrutinising her bank accounts to ascertain the amount of money that has been transacted in the murder.
The police have arrested 11 people immediately after the murder and three more were arrested yesterday.They were woman AIADMK functionary and advocate Malarkodi Sekar, who was immedately sacked from the party, Hariharan of TMC and Satish, who was the son of a DMK functionary.
TMC President and former Union Minister GK Vasan had expelled Hariharan from the party following his arrest.
Yesterday police arrested woman expelled BJP Mahila Morcha functionary in North Chennai Anjalai.
She was arrested by Special teams were formed to trace her, who was close to history- sheeter‘Arcot’ Suresh, whose murder last year in the city, was stated to be the main reason for the killing of Armstrong, police said.
The arrest of Haridharan has taken the total arrests to 16 so far and police sources said a list of rowdies and history-sheeters have been taken to ascertain whether they had any links in the case.
