Ending days of uncertainty, People’s Democratic Party chairman Abdul Nasser Madani was arrested by a Karnataka police team on Tuesday afternoon.
He was later flown to Bengaluru. The PDP leader is an accused in the Bengaluru blasts case.
Mr Madani, who had been camping in an orphanage in Anwarasserry, Kollam, was arrested when he entered a vehicle to go to the Karunagapally magistrate’s court to surrender.
As soon as his car reached the gates of the orphanage, a large police posse led by Kollam SP Harshitha Attalluri blocked it. The Karnataka police officers pushed the PDP workers out of the car and took control of it. The senior officer, Mr Omkaraiah, then formally arrested Mr Madani. The car then moved out of the orphanage escorted by a convoy of police vehicles and sped towards Thiruvananthapuram.
The handful of followers of Mr Madani who were on the orphanage premises were taken aback by the police move and were seen crying out loudly. The police had clamped prohibitory orders in the area and had flushed out thousands of PDP workers three days before.
Mr Madani and his wife, Mrs Sufiya, were shifted to a police vehicle at Kottarakkara and the convoy reached Thiruvananthapuram airport by 4.10 pm. There was tight security all along the way and the police effectively prevented PDP workers from blocking the convoy at many spots. Though the Karnataka police team planned to take Mr Madani to Bengaluru on a Jet Airways flight scheduled for 4.40 pm, seats were not available.