Police have arrested another suspect of the Rautahat brick kiln massacre in which at least two persons were allegedly burnt alive and many others were injured 13 years ago.

Security personnel, in coordination with the Indian police, detained Mahatab Alam from Motihari in the Indian state of Bihar on Sunday night. He was brought to Rautahat on Monday.

Mahatab is the younger brother of Nepali Congress leader Mohammad Aftab Alam who was arrested by police in October 2019 for his involvement in the massacre.

Mahatab had gone into hiding after the arrest of his brother in 2019. Security personnel took Mahatab under control while he was meeting his son in Motihari.

Deputy Inspector General Dhiraj Pratap Singh, also the head of the provincial police office in Janakpur, confirmed the arrest of Mahatab.

In 2008, a day before the elections of the Constituent Assembly-I, a blast took place at a shed in Rajpur Municipality, Rautahat. Police had filed a charge sheet claiming that Alam and his men had thrown Trilok Pratap Singh and Osi Akhtar into the kiln’s furnace after the blast.

The charges of attempted murder and holding and transporting explosive materials have been registered against 11 people involved in the Rautahat brick kiln massacre. The suspects also face the charges of burning injured people alive in a brick kiln to destroy evidence. Alam, who was elected to the federal parliament from Rautahat-2 in the 2017 elections, is in judicial custody in Nakhu jail.

Police have so far arrested five persons in connection to the blast.

“Six other suspects are still at large. Search for them is underway,” said Superintendent of Police Siddhi Bikram Shah.

Trilok’s father Shrinarayan Singh and Akhtar’s mother Roksana Khatun had filed complaints against Alam and his accomplices after the explosion. Alam and three others had been arrested a few months after the explosion but they were later released. An unidentified group gunned down Khatun in 2011.