5 held in connection with Deewana Ali murder

Afsar alias Appi, Saleem Ahmed, Farooq, Afroz and Nazeem are the arrested.
Siddapura-based gangster Mahim, who was also named in the FIR filed on Sunday, the day the corporator was shot at and then hacked to death at Yarabnagar in Banashankari, was present around Jayanagar area and was getting a blow-by-blow account of the murderous assault on Ali.

Late on Wednesday night, all the accused persons were produced before the III Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate's residence at National Games Village for 15 days’ police remand.

Police sources said that more than 15 people took part in the planning and execution of the attack on Ali. They were all, in some way or the other, affected by Ali's depredations in and around Yarabnagar. The enemies that Ali had made earlier, took advantage of the situation and played the role of catalysts. They teamed up with this aggrieved lot and helped them take revenge.

But the police is not only focusing on the enmity angle. They are going beyond this to probe whether the scrap and sand mafia funded and provided with the weapons to undertake the hit job on Ali. Source said they would disclose the intricate details surrounding Ali's murder on Friday.

According to police sources, Appi who, police said, was arrested early Wednesday morning, had developed a strong enmity against Ali some time back. Two houses that Appi's father had given out on rent were forcibly vacated by Ali who subsequently evicted them from the Yarabnagar locality. They were not even allowed to return to the area to collect the rent due to them. Harassed by Ali and his henchmen, Appi could not even continue with his engineering course at Dayananda Sagar Engineering College.

The police were, however, averse to disclose whether Appi had named Mahim as one of the accused persons. Sources said that even four days after the gruesome slaying of Ali, they were not being able to come up with sufficient evidence to link Ali's murder with Mahim.

But they are continuing to pursue other leads, including the amount of money that had been paid to the killers.