5 held for Sunday mass attack in Kolhapur district

KOLHAPUR: In a major breakthrough, Kolhapur police on Friday arrested five youths from Belgavi district in Karnataka for their alleged involvement in the attack on a Sunday mass in Kowad village of Chandgad taluka, about 100km from here.
"Preliminary investigation has revealed that the arrested suspects do not belong to a particular organization but are associated with different radical groups," Kolhapur superintendent of police Abhinav Deshmukh told TOI.
The officer said police have identified 13 more suspects in the December 23 attack case and that they would soon be arrested.
"Under interrogation, the suspects confessed to have committed the crime and revealed that a total of 20 men had participated in the attack. They have also revealed the names of six suspects," said Deshmukh.
"Our main target is to find out the reason behind the attack and who the mastermind is. We will soon reach out to them."
The five youths, who were picked up from their residences in four different villages of Belgavi, will be produced in a local court on Saturday, said police. They have been identified as Ajay Appaji Patil (23) of Hadignur, Gajanan Bhavkanna Patil (23) and Amol Bhavkanna Patil (23), both from Nilaji, Mahesh Parshuram Patil (23) of Attiwad and Gopal Laxman Kalkamkar (20) of Sulaga.