The CBI today arrested Assam education minister Ripun Bora and an associate for allegedly offering Rs 10 lakh as bribe to an agency officer investigating the case of a student’s murder in which Bora is a suspect.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who came under Opposition fire for “shielding” the minister, dropped him from the state cabinet late tonight.

Bora was arrested in Delhi this afternoon after the CBI sprung a trap. The CBI official, probing the murder of student leader Daniel Toppo, filed a complaint last evening that the minister had offered him a bribe of Rs 10 lakh to hush up the case.

Bora was arrested from the Sunder Nagar area along with associate Ramesh Maheshwari when he was allegedly offering the bribe to the official. In Guwahati, Mukul Pathak, a journalist who the CBI claimed was another Bora associate, too was taken into custody.

Toppo, district president of All Assam Tea Tribe Students Union, was a candidate during the 1996 Assembly elections and was Bora’s rival. He was murdered on September 27, 2000. The CBI was handed the case in 2001 after the Assam Police failed to make any breakthrough.

After Bora’s arrest, the opposition Asom Gana Parishad demanded the dismissal of the Gogoi government.