Kochi | Five persons were arrested by police on Wednesday in connection with the brutal late night assault of a former panchayat leader a day ago in Aluva here.

The victim is presently admitted in the ICU at a private hospital, with multiple stab wounds and blunt force injuries, police said.

An officer of Aluva police said that five persons have been arrested, and that the weapons used to commit the crime were recovered and the vehicle in which the alleged assailants arrived seized during the day.

Earlier in the day, Ernakulam Rural SP Vaibhav Saxena said the attack was the outcome of personal enmity between the alleged assailants and the victim.

He said that a case under section 307 (attempt to murder) of the IPC has been filed.

The SP also visited the place -- Chowara near Aluva -- where the attack took place.

According to CCTV visuals of the incident shown on TV channels, a group of persons -- one of them wearing a helmet -- carrying various weapons in their hands is seen attacking people sitting late at night at a public place in Chowara.

As people started running helter-skelter to save themselves, the assailants damaged the front and rear windshields of a car parked there and then attacked the victim who was standing there.

The visuals showed the attackers repeatedly assaulting the victim after he was kicked down, and then escaping in their vehicle.