A day after the arrest of Savad, the prime accused in the sensational Professor TJ Joseph hand-chopping case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has intensified the hunt to trace the people who helped the accused to find safe hideous to him.

The NIA has found that Savad had lived in Valappattanam, Vilakode and Beram regions of Kannur after changing his identity. While police and NIA were searching for Savad throughout the country and abroad, he was leading a normal life after marrying a woman from Kasargod and changing his name to Shajahan.

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Sources said though Savad changed his hideouts, he did not leave Kerala even after NIA issued a lookout notice for him.

The NIA has found that Savad was in hiding under the protection of the banned Popular Front India (PFI) workers. The anti-terror agency has decided to conduct a detailed investigation into the people who helped Savad to stay in hiding for 13 years. Savad’s father-in-law said that he had given his daughter in marriage to the accused eight years ago without knowing that he was a suspect in the hand chopping case. He got married under the false name of Shah Jahan.

The documents and address of his wife were given for taking house on rent. It is reported that the NIA confirms that Shahjahan is Savad from the birth record of the youngest child The NIA team collected other records such as Aadhar card and other proofs from the residence where Savad had been living. During the investigation, verification of the birth certificate of Savad’s child from the Municipal office confirmed that the home address belonged to Savad, who had been living under the false name of Shajahan.

It has become clear to the NIA that the people who helped to arrange houses on rent at Valapatanam, Vilakkodu and Beram and carpentry were people with connections to the PFI. It is evident that Savad was in the Kasaragod and Kannur areas for more than eight years without being caught by the police.There is serious negligence on the part of the police in this regard.

BJP Kerala President K Surendran accused the ruling CPI-M government in Kerala of safeguarding Savad. He said the accused had been on the wanted list of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) since 2014. However, he curiously dodged detection and arrest.

Union Minister V. Muraleedharan said peace lovers in Kerala were shocked that the prime accused in TJ Joseph’s hand chopping case has spent 13 years in hiding in Kannur.

He said the life in hiding of the accused in Mattannur, a communist stronghold, proves the CPI-M’s soft approach and secret relationship with terrorist elements. The Union Minister also accused the CPI-M of giving protection to terrorist elements by neutralising the police through political intervention.

The NIA on Tuesday night arrested Savad, the first accused in the sensational Professor TJ Joseph hand-chopping case, after 13 years.

The probe agency’s fugitive tracking wing, based on a tip-off, raided a rented house in Beram near Mattannur in the Kannur district on Tuesday night and took Savad, who chopped off the right  hand of Professor TJ Joseph in 2010, into custody.