The weapon used to fatally stab Muthoot group scion Paul M George was recovered from the house of the main accused on Wednesday, while a police team under a Deputy Superintendent of Police has been set up to track down two absconding gangsters who had accompanied the victim.
Police said they seized a 26-cm long 'S-shaped' dagger from the house of Kari Satheesh, arrested on Tuesday, in Paippad in Alappuzha. He is being interrogated.
The special team had been assigned to trace Om Prakash and Rajesh, the two gangsters who were accompanying 32-year-old George when he was murdered by a criminal gang in a deserted place near Alappuzha in the wee hours of August 22.
George was the Executive Director of Muthoot M George Group, a leading business group in Kerala with interest in several areas, including financing and hospitality industry.
The case assumed political undertones with the Opposition Congress and BJP alleging that some higher-ups in government and the police were trying to 'sabotage' it to protect Om Prakash and Rajesh.
Though preliminary assumption of the police had been that the gang murdered George on 'sudden provocation' after his vehicle hit a motorcyclist, they are also under pressure to probe links of Om Prakash and Rajesh with George.
So far, 12 people, all members of a criminal racket known in local parlance as 'quotation team', had been arrested in connection with the murder.
Police version, based on the leads so far obtained, was that George, Om Prakash, Rajesh and two others had come to Alappuzha from Kochi in two cars.
At a place called Pallathuruthy, Goerge's vehicle hit and injured a motorcyclist. A criminal gang, which was on its way to carry out an 'operation", took offence as Goerge ignored the motorcyclist hit by his vehicle.
Some of them chased Goerge's car for about 2.5 km, waylaid and Satheesh stabbed him fatally after a scuffle.
Om Prakash and Rajesh fled the scene in the car, which was found abandoned at Chavara in Kollam District the next day. Meanwhile, mother of Satheesh, Vilasini, claimed her son had actually surrendered to the police and not tracked down and nabbed as claimed by the investigators.
She said her son had conveyed to the police his willingness to surrender through some of his friends.
