Thiruvananthapuram: Cops are in Bengaluru in search of absconding former Imam Shafeeq Al Qasimi, accused of raping an underaged girl.
They have also taken the cleric's brother Al Ameen along while another brother, Naushad, has gone missing.
The Qasimi was absconding after the police booked him under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
The police team had arrested one of his brothers from Tripunithura in Ernakulam on Saturday.
The other two brothers, Ansari and Shaji, who are already in custody, have come out with contradicting statements on his presence in Karnataka.
They have been maintaining that he is still hiding in Ernakulam and not sought refuge in Bengaluru.
They were misleading the police claiming that the cleric's car was abandoned in Perumbavoor, while it was found at Vyttila.
Nedumangad DySP D. Ashokan who is probing the incident happened in Tholicode near Vithura will be questioning the three brothers who are in custody.
The suspect was serving as an Imam at a mosque there, and the police booked him on a complaint of the mosque committee president.
He told the police that the cleric had lured the minor girl to an isolated forest area and sexually assaulted her last week.
The mosque committee expelled him after women workers spotted him with the girl and flagged it after he fled the scene in his Innova.
The investigation team has divided into two, and one is already in Bengaluru and the second working from Ernakulam parallelly.
