The Barrackpore Police Commissionerate arrested the accused in the Dakshineswar metro station murder case late on Friday night.

The police apprehended Rana Singh, 19, at the Howrah railway station while he was trying to flee the state along with his parents and sister.

A police officer said they received a tip-off that Singh was about to board a Bihar-bound train.

After arresting Singh, the police took him to his residence at Alambazar under the Baranagar police station and recovered a blood-stained knife and a blood-smeared school bag.

According to police sources, Singh was interrogated the entire night as the police wanted to know the motive behind the murder.

Questions have also been raised as to how the accused was carrying the knife in his school bag without being detected.

Meanwhile, the forensic team collected evidence from the Dakshineswar metro station on Saturday.

According to a senior police officer in the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate, they have got CCTV footage from both inside and outside the metro station, and those clips were being scrutinised.

“The accused will be produced in the Barrackpore court on Saturday, and we will be seeking his custody for further investigation,” added the senior police officer.

On Friday afternoon, Class 11 student Manjeet Yadav, 18, was returning home from his school along with his friends when he was allegedly stabbed multiple times by Singh near the ticket counter at the Dakshineswar metro station.

According to police sources, both the accused and the victim had boarded the metro from Shyambazar station and got off at Dakshineswar station. They added that an argument had broken out between Singh and Yadav, and the accused suddenly took out a sharp object from his bag and started stabbing Yadav.

The sources added that the argument and the subsequent attack were probably related to Yadav allegedly passing some lewd comments against a girl.

In the commotion after the attack, the accused managed to escape. Railway Protection Force jawans took Yadav to the hospital, where he was declared dead. According to hospital sources, Yadav was stabbed in the chest below the left shoulder.

The victim was the second of three sons. His father runs a small cattle pen and supplies dairy products. The family lives in Baranagar, and the victim used to take the metro from Shyambazar on his way back home from school.