Ex-SFI leader Nikhil Thomas in police custody for submitting fake certificate to join college in Kerala

Kayamkulam (Kerala): Former SFI leader Nikhil Thomas, who has been facing charges of submitting a fake certificate to get admission in a college, was taken into custody from a government bus in Kottayam district of Kerala, police said on Saturday.

He was taken into custody from Kottayam while travelling in a KSRTC bus bound for Kottarakkara in Kollam district.

Police said Thomas was taken to Kayamkulam police station in Alappuzha district and interrogation is going on, a police officer said. "The arrest is yet to be recorded," a police officer told PTI.

Thomas had been a former leader of the Left outfit in the Kayamkulam-based MSM College.

Under attack from various quarters over the fake certificate charges, the Students' Federation of India (SFI) on Tuesday expelled him from the primary membership of the outfit.

The SFI is the students' wing of the ruling CPI(M).

Thomas had done something which should never be done by an SFI worker, the organisation had said in a statement.

The Kerala Students' Union (KSU), the students' wing of the Congress in the state, has been alleging that Thomas had obtained an MCom seat in the same college after submitting a "fake degree certificate".

The KSU has been claiming that Thomas failed in his BCom degree course at MSM College but during MCom admission, he provided a certificate from Kalinga University in Chhattisgarh.