A local court here on Saturday sent former SFI leader Nikhil Thomas to seven-day police custody, accused of submitting fake certificates to get admission in a college. Earlier in the day, the police had registered the arrest of Thomas, who was taken into custody from a bus in Kerala’s Kottayam district this morning. The court allowed police custody till June 30.
Police said the custody was granted after seeking time to collect evidence as part of the probe. Thomas was detained while traveling in a KSRTC bus from Kottayam to Kottarakkara in Kollam district. He was taken to Kayamkulam police station in Alappuzha district for questioning. Thomas was a former leader of the Left organization at Kayamkulam-based MSM College.
Under attack from various quarters over the allegation of fake certificates, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) on Tuesday expelled him from the primary membership of the organisation. SFI is the student wing of the ruling CPI(M). The organization said in a statement that Thomas had done something that should never have been done by an SFI activist.
The Kerala Students’ Union (KSU), the student wing of the Congress in the state, has been alleging that Thomas secured an M.Com seat in the same college after submitting “fake degree certificates”. The KSU has been claiming that Thomas had failed the B.Com degree course at MSM College, but had produced a certificate from Chhattisgarh’s Kalinga University during M.Com admission.
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