Nine police officers have been arrested in Mexico in connection with the disappearance of 43 students of Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in 2014.

The secretariat of public security of Guerrero announced the arrest on Thursday.

The criminal investigation agency said it implemented the order to arrest the seven state police officers and two others in Iguala municipality.

In September 2014, 43 students of the college, known for its left-wing activism, disappeared after being intercepted by police on their way back home from Iguala.

The students had taken part in protests against discriminatory hiring practices for teachers.

It was reported that the local police blocked the road the students were travelling, kidnapped them and handed them over to bandits who killed them in different places.

Analysis of the bone remains found during the search operation confirmed the identity of three of the missing students.

Also, witnesses to the events, participants and 26 key witnesses’ had so far died or were killed during the investigation.

The country’s interior ministry called the 2014 kidnapping a state crime committed in collaboration with the Guerreros Unidos criminal gang and agents of a few Mexican state bodies.

The investigation found nothing indicating that the missing students could be alive.

The federal court ordered the arrest of 83 persons in connection with the case, including 20 commanders and soldiers of the Mexican army’s 27th and 41st infantry battalion.

(Sputnik/NAN)