Praveen Nettaru Murder Case – NIA arrests another absconder Riyaz from Mumbai airport
NIA on Tuesday swooped down on an absconder in the Praveen Nettaru murder case and arrested him from Mumbai airport while he was trying to flee abroad.
The arrest of Riyaz Yousaf Haaralli @Riyaz has taken the total number of accused taken into custody so far to 19 in the case relating to the gruesome murder of Nettaru. His arrest comes less than a month after absconder, Mustafa Paichar, was nabbed along with one of his harbourers, 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 the society, NIA investigations have shown.
According to NIA investigations, Riyaz returned from abroad on the directions of
absconding accused Abdul Rahman. Along with Mansoor Pasha, Riyaz 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 NIA from Sakleshpura on 10th May 2024 along with Mansoor Pasha.
NIA, which had taken over the investigation on 4th August 2022, has so far filed a charge-sheet against 21 accused persons. The agency is continuing with its manhunt to track the other absconders.
