The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has nabbed the main accused in a case related to the mutilation of a college professor's hand in Kerala over an allegedly blasphemous question paper.

An NIA team swarmed a rented house where Savad, 38, stayed in Beram village in Mattannur, a remote part of Kannur district, late on Tuesday.

Locals told reporters who thronged the place that Savad has been living in the house with his wife and kids for over a year.

A native of Ernakulam, Savad has been working as a carpenter in Beram. Local sources said he had been in the village for eight months and had no contact with his neighbours.

The central agency had been on the lookout for Savad who fled soon after the shocking incident in Muvattupuzha where a group, which included him, waylaid professor T. J. Joseph and chopped off his right hand.

A special NIA court had in July 2023 sentenced six of the eleven accused in the case to jail terms in the second phase of the two-phased trial. While three of them were sentenced to life terms, the other three were awarded three-year terms each.

In the first phase of the trial in 2015, the NIA court had found 13 men guilty in the case while acquitting 18 others. All of them were part of the now-banned radical group Popular Front of India.

The accused were charged with several penal provisions and offences under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, and The Explosive Substances Act. The NIA had taken over the case in March 2011.

A then Malayalam professor at Newman College in Thodupuzha in Idukki district, Joseph had courted controversy by including an allegedly blasphemous question in the question paper set by him in March 2010.

This was followed by massive protests and a police case. The professor had to go into hiding for about six days after the college authorities abandoned him by staying clear of the case.

After subsequent arrest and judicial custody, the professor was provided armed police security because of the prevailing threat perception. However, the assailants caught up with him while he was driving back with his family members from a Sunday morning church service.

They dragged him out of the car, chopped off his right hand and threw it into a nearby thicket. Even after multiple surgeries, Joseph's right hand has been rendered useless. He then switched to writing with his left hand.

Joseph narrated the entire story in vivid detail in his memoir Attupokatha Ormakal (Memories that don’t sever), later published in English as A Thousand Cuts.

Joseph told reporters at his home that he wouldn't get any justice with the arrest of the man who chopped his hand as his life had already been scarred by the incident. “The disability I have suffered will never be cured even if these people are hanged,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

“To me, the main accused are those who plotted this incident and sent these men to attack me. They are still behind the curtains,” Joseph said when asked if the arrest would bring closure to him.

He also warned that such incidents would continue until the masterminds are arrested. “Until those people are brought to book and their organisations shut down, such incidents will continue to happen.”