Mexico's chief prosecutor accused the Iguala mayor, his wife and the local police chief of being behind the forced disappearance of 43 students in the state of Guerrero, Pulso de San Luis reports.

Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam said that the students from the village of Ayotzinapa were headed to Iguala on Sept. 26 to prevent a presentation that María de los Ángeles Pineda, the wife of Mayor José Luis Abarca Velázquez, was to give before a local welfare body. On the way, they were stopped by Iguala and Cocula police.

In the confrontation that ensued, five students were killed along with a 15-year-old soccer player who happened to be in the area, the Los Angeles Times reported. Dozens more were wounded, and some 50 went missing, all pupils at the Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa, which the Los Angeles Times called "a highly politicized learning institution for the poor that has radical roots."

While a number of them eventually reappeared, 43 remain missing. Authorities so far have not been able to determine if there are ties to a mass grave uncovered nearby. The site contained 30 bodies.

Pineda and Abarca are said to have left Iguala the night of Sept. 26 and remain on the run. Murillo did, however, announce the arrest of 52 individuals linked to the incident, including several police officers. Also nabbed was Sidronio Casarrubias Salgado, whom Murillo identified as a local crime lord and leader of the Guerreros Unidos drug gang.

Salgado has apparently turned on his former allies. He was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as accusing Pineda of being the "principal operator of criminal activities from City Hall, of course with complicity of her husband ... and (Iguala police) chief Felipe Flores Velazquez."

The mayoral couple apparently received up to $230,000 a month from the Guerreros Unidos, while local police bucketed another $50,000, the Wall Street Journal said based on Murillo's accusations.

In Iguala, meanwhile, further violence erupted on Monday, according to the Los Angeles Times, when students in the town of about 110,000 set the local City Hall on fire.