Police suspect that most of the arrested persons were having criminal background (Representational)
Police on Tuesday arrested 16 people, including a convict in a political murder case, in connection with the seizure of banned drugs from a resort in Kerala's Wayanad district.
Busting a rave party, the police on late Monday night took into custody notorious criminal Kirmani Manoj, a convict in the rebel CPI(M) leader TP Chandrasekharan murder case in 2012 and 15 others, officials said.
Manoj attended the party while he was on parole, they said.
During the raid carried out at the resort in Padinjarethara village on a tip-off, police seized drugs including MDMA, also known as ecstacy, they said.
They have been charged under sections of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.
Police suspect that most of the arrested persons were having criminal background.
The rave party was organised by a gangster called Kambalakkad Mohsin as part of his wedding anniversary celebrations, they said.
Meanwhile, Vatakara MLA K K Rema alleged that the killers of Chandrasekharan were getting patronage from the ruling CPI(M) in the state.
Reacting to the arrest of Manoj, Rema, who is Chandrasekharan's widow, said she was not surprised as it is a known fact that the convicts in the Chandrasekharan murder case were living under the patronage of the CPI(M).
"They have been on parole for the last two years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic", she told reporters.
Slamming the government, she alleged that the Intelligence wing of the state police failed to monitor the movement of convicts like Manoj who are on parole.
Rema is the leader of RMP founded by Chandrasekharan, a former CPI(M) leader, a decade ago.
Chandrasekharan was hacked to death, allegedly by CPI(M) workers, on May 4, 2012.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)