The Kerala Police arrested former Students Federation of India (SFI) leader Nikhil Thomas, who is accused of  forging a fake degree certificate for M Com admission, on Saturday.

 Nikhil Thomas, who was absconding for the past five days, was taken into custody by Kayamkulam police from Kottayam KSRTC bus stand in the wee hours of Saturday. Nikhil had been absconding for the past five days after the Kayamkulam Police registered a case for cheating and forgery against him.

The Kayamkulam first class Magistrate court remanded Nikhil to police custody for a week considering the demand of the police to take him to Kalinga University for evidence collection.

The Kayamkulam Police  booked him for cheating and forgery after he secured M Com admission at Milad E-Sherif Memorial (MSM) College, Kayamkulam by submitting a fake degree certificate.

Nikhil studied B Com at MSM College during 2017-20. However, he did not clear the exam. Later, he joined the M Com course  in the 2021-23 batch, at the same college in January 2022 with a 2017-20 B Com certificate from Kalinga University in Raipur.

Earlier, MSM College had suspended Thomas for possessing a fraudulent graduation certificate for the PG admission at the college.

Meanwhile, the  Kalinga  University informed that a student named Nikhil Thomas did not study there. The University Registrar  informed that legal action will be taken against Nikhil Thomas.

The incident has put both the CPI -M and SFI in a tight spot after the allegation that Thomas was admitted to the college based on the recommendation of a CPI-M leader.

The SFI, which initially came out in support of  Nikhil Thomas soon distanced itself from the controversy after officials of Kalinga University asserted  Nikhil had not studied there.

Nikhil, who was a member of the party’s Kayamkulam market branch, was expelled by the  CPI-M Alappuzha district committee on Thursday.

The decision comes after it was confirmed that Nikhil joined the M Com programme at Milad-E-Sherif Memorial (MSM) College in Kayamkulam without passing the B.Com examinations.

In this connection, Nikhil  reportedly gave a statement against SFI former Kayamkulam area president Abin C Raj. Following this,  the police have included Abin C Raja as an accused in the fake degree certificate  case at MSM College. Nikhil reportedly told the police that Abin arranged for him the fake degree certificate of Kalinga University for Rs 2 lakh.