Ahmedabad, India - Investigations into the murder of a US-based non-resident Indian (NRI) associated with a spiritual sect here have led the police to reopen a three-year old case relating to an attack on a Britain-based NRI, a member of the same organisation.
Police arrested Manish Savsani, a member of the Swadhyaya Parivar, from the Saurashtra city of Rajkot Tuesday afternoon in connection with the attack on Vinu Sanchania, a senior Parivar member, in January 2003 in Jamnagar, about 400 km from here.
The investigation in the case had been closed since police could not unearth any evidence.
The case has been reopened following investigations in the murder of Pankaj Trivedi.
The investigating official in murder case, inspector N.K. Rathod of the Ellis Bridge police station said many similarities were found between the two incidents.
Five unidentified people had beaten Sanchania with baseball bats, just as Trivedi was hit on his head with a baseball bat.
Trivedi, who was involved in a legal tussle with a section of the Parivar alleging corruption in the sect, had already asked for police security when he visited Gujarat last year.
Police started interrogating 30 people of the Parivar from whom Trivedi felt a threat to his life.
'We have been investigating the murder case. But we have not received any clue yet,' Rathod told IANS.
Rathod said that the Ellis Bridge police would interrogate Savsani 'because the accused in the Jamnagar case could throw light on the Trivedi murder case'.
Pandurang Shashtri Athvale launched the Swadhyaya Parivar movement in the 1980s, and it gained wide popularity in Maharashtra and Gujarat. After the death of its founder, however, the sect has fragmented with different various factions exchanging allegations.