Bengaluru, Apr 27 (IANS): Irfan, alleged to be the main accused in assaulting healthcare warriors and instigating violence in the city's southwest suburb on April 19, was hunted down and nabbed, the police said on Monday.

"Intense search for Irfan since a week resulted in locating and arresting him. He was hiding and shifting places, as he could not escape from the city due to the tight security at the border check-posts," Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Ramesh Bhanot told reporters here.

Irfan, arrested under the new Karnataka Epidemic Disease Ordinance, 2020, will be produced in a local court on Tuesday for judicial custody and interrogation.

"Many of the 140 co-accused, arrested on April 20-21, said that Irfan was the mastermind behind the assault and violence in the Padarayanapura civic ward, which was declared a hotspot after a dozen Covide-19 positive cases were reported from the area. We will interrogate him as part of the investigation into the incident," said Bhanot.

Preliminary investigation revealed that Irfan is a scrap dealer and runs a religious trust to help the needy and poor in the densely-populated locality.

Of the co-accused, 116 were re-located to Haj Bhavan in the city after five other accused tested positive and were shifted to a state-run hospital in the city for treatment from the Ramanagara district jail, about 50 km southwest of the city.

The co-accused were arrested under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for attacking 30 Asha woman workers and 10 doctors when they were shifting secondary contacts of three Covid-19 patients from the hotspot to a quarantine centre in the city.

Additional Police Commissioner Soumendra Mukjherjee and Joint Commissioner Sandeep Patil are investigating the incident.