REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MEXICO CITY - A Mexican mayor and his wife were "probable masterminds" behind the disappearance of 43 student-teachers last month in the restive southwest, the country's attorney general said on Wednesday.

The students went missing on Sept. 26 from Iguala in the southwestern state of Guerrero, after they clashed with police. The incident sent shockwaves across Mexico and undermined President Enrique Pena Nieto's claims that Mexico is getting safer under his watch.

So far, federal authorities have arrested 52 people in connection with the incident, including dozens of police who have links to a gang called Guerreros Unidos, or "United Warriors." The gang's leader, Sidronio Casarrubias, was caught last week.

Thousands marched in Iguala on Wednesday to protest the disappearance of the teachers in training. After the march, masked men set fire to the municipal offices with Molotov cocktails and smashed the windows.

In Mexico City, Attorney General Jesus Murillo said Casarrubias had told prosecutors that Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda, had ordered two local police forces to stop the students from disrupting a political event that day.

"We have issued warrants for the arrest of Iguala Mayor Jose Luis Abarca, his wife Mrs Pineda Villa and police chief Felipe Flores Velazquez, as probable masterminds of the events that occurred in Iguala on Sept. 26," Murillo said at a press conference.

The case has overshadowed Pena Nieto's bid to restore order in Mexico and shift the focus away from endemic gang violence and onto economic growth in Latin America's No. 2 economy. Drug violence exploded during the rule of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon, and has claimed about 100,000 lives since 2007.

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