The city police on Monday arrested former PMK councillor Manivannan in Mangalore in connection with the murder of his son-in-law.
“We have arrested Manivannan and brought him to Chennai and are now on the lookout for five others,” the police said.
Bilal, 25, who had married Manivannan’s daughter without the consent of the girl’s family, was allegedly hacked to death last week by a gang allegedly sent by the former PMK councillor.
The youth was allegedly bundled into a vehicle in Mylapore on Wednesday night and hacked to death. His body was then dumped near Mandaveli MRTS station by the gang.
Earlier, the former councillor had lodged a complaint against Bilal saying that he had kidnapped his 19-year-old daughter.
When police summoned Bilal’s brother Ahamed Basha to the Mylapore police station for inquiry, Manivannan had stabbed him with a bayonet kept there.
The police had earlier said that girl was separated from her husband and kept in the house of a former Union minister from PMK.
Manivannan had initially told the police that he was not involved in the murder of his poor neighbour Bilal.
“He is not very cohesive in his statements. Sometimes he says that he had asked a gang headed by Mahadevan to execute the murder.
The next minute he would say that he had asked the gang not to go ahead with it,” said a police official involved in the murder probe.