The government of Mexico ordered the arrest of mayor Jose Luis Abarca of the southern town of Iguala, his wife and a police chief, in connection with the six deaths and the disappearance of 43 students after the clashes with local police in September. The students traveled to Iguala for a protest to demand a raise of funds for their college. The police, using live rounds, opened fire on their buses when they were traveling from Iguala back to Ayotzinapa, their home town.
Mayor of Iguala, Jose Luis Abarca is belived to have ordered the police operation to stop the students’ demonstration disrupting an event hosted by his wife, according to Mexico’s chief prosecutor. The missing students were last seen being hauled into police cars, in Iguala. Police chief Felipe Flores, Abarca and his wife Maria de los Angeles Pineda are wanted as the organisers of the events that occurred on 26 September in Iguala, according to Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam. Abarca is also suspected to have had links to local drug cartels, including the Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors). Sidronio Casarrubias, the alleged leader of the gang was detained last Thursday by federal police on a highway outside of Mexico City. While in police custody, Casarrubias told officers that the missing students had been handed over to cartel members by Iguala police. Allegedly, Casarrubias received a note saying that the students were members of a rival cartel, so he had ordered his men to dispose of them.
The disappearances sparked protests across Mexico, demanding that justice be done. Demonstrators in Iguala set fire to the town hall of the city on Wednesday. The search for the missing students continues, as the DNA tests confirmed that they were not among the 30 analyzed bodies discovered in several mass graves around the town of Iguala. The identities of the bodies discovered in the mass graves remain unknown. However, concerns have been raised about the fate of the students. A reward of 1.5 million pesos (€87.000, $110.000) has been offered by the Mexican government for any information that would lead to their finding and around 1200 federal police agents are deployed in a search for them in the town of Iguala and it’s outskirts. In the meantime, the mayor of Iguala and his wife are considered fugitives after they had fled the city when the mass graves were discovered.