Kolkata Police have made a fresh arrest in connection with the alleged lynching of a man inside a students’ hostel in Bowbazar.

Police said the arrested person was a student of geography who had fled from Calcutta on the day of the incident and had taken shelter at a relative’s house inside a tea garden in Jalpaiguri district.

Sources said at least two more students who were allegedly present in the hostel where the incident happened last month, are on the police’s radar.

With this arrest, the total number of people booked in this case rose to 15.

On June 28, a television mechanic named Irshad Alam, 37, was allegedly dragged inside the Udayan Hostel on Nirmal Chandra Street in central Calcutta and allegedly beaten with bats and sticks causing his death a few hours later.

He was suspected to have stolen a mobile phone belonging to a hostel boarder.

Fourteen youths, including two former students, who had extended their stay in the students’ hostel as a “security guard” and as a “cook” have been arrested till now. They have been booked under sections of murder and criminal conspiracy and are in police remand.

“This youth (who was arrested from Jalpaiguri), along with two others, had fled Calcutta shortly after Alam was recovered from inside the hostel on June 28. The fact that they fled suggests that they are scared of getting arrested or are hiding something. We got their names during the interrogation of the remaining accused persons who are in custody,” said an officer attached to the probe.

Till now police have recovered CCTV footage from a shop in front of the hostel where two former students who were living in the hostel as a guard and a cook, were seen dragging Alam inside the hostel.