Mexican mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, have been arrested following the disappearance of 43 students in the town of Iguala.
According to Associated Press, the couple was arrested in a raid in Iztapalapa, Mexico City before dawn. The two are being tagged as the primary suspects in the abduction of the students and the killing of six others.
CNN reported that the couple "did not resist arrest" when police found them. Also arrested with them was a woman named Noemí Berumen Rodríguez who was allegedly hiding them. Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam was quoted as saying that the police raided the area after seeing Rodríguez enter an abandoned house.
Despite their arrest, the couple has remained mum as to where the students are and what happened to them, AP said.
The abduction has caused public outrage and protests. The New York Times said that President Enrique Peña Nieto earlier vowed to prioritize the case. Nieto then hailed the arrest of the couple and commended the police for their efforts. He also said that he is hoping that the arrest would solve the case.
"I hope that this detention contributes in a decisive way to solving the investigation that the Attorney General's Office is conducting," CNN quoted Nieto as saying.
Abarca and his wife have fled after resigning from his post following suspicion that he was the head behind the attack and disappearance of the students.
According to the New York Times, at least six people were killed, three of them were students from a teachers' college during a violence in Iguala late September. It was reported that mayor Abarca told the police to "teach them [students] a lesson" so as to not interrupt his wife who was giving a speech in the town's plaza. The report said that some people have witnessed the incident and claimed that several students have been put in police vehicles after the police opened fire. The missing students, it noted, were allegedly sent to a drug gang called Guerreros Unidos which is also allegedly behind several other kidnapping and extortion cases.
New York Times reported that it is believed that the Guerreros Unidos has been paying the mayor and the police. Citing federal officials, it noted that the mayor was paid "up to $220,000 every few weeks." It also said that Abarca's wife is the gang's "top operative."
Earlier, graves containing 38 bodies have been found by authorities in Iguala but initial tests indicated that the bodies do not belong to the missing students, New York Times said.
Reacting to the couple's arrest, Mario Cesar Gonzalez, one of the parents of the missing students, told AP that "news like this has just made him angrier."
"I wish they would put the same intelligence services and effort into finding the students. The ineptitude is staggering," he was again quoted as saying.
Aside from the couple's arrest, more than 50 others have already been taken into custody, AP said.
Meanwhile, Felipe de la Cruz, another parent of the students, said that this might be the "missing piece" in finding the students. "This was the missing piece. This arrest will help us find our kids...It was the government who took our kids," AP quoted him as saying.
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