Lapang govt hesitant on CBI probe ~ About Meghalaya

Protests over jailbreak gather steam

Lapang: Hemmed in

Shillong, June 23 : The Meghalaya government, nettled by the Opposition’s continuous prodding over the Shillong jailbreak, will go slow on the demand for a CBI inquiry and instead wait for the report of a fresh police probe it had ordered into the incident, chief minister D.D. Lapang told the Assembly today.

In reply to a motion moved by NCP legislator James Sangma on a politician-businessman-criminal nexus behind the jailbreak, Lapang today said that the government would weigh various options before conducting a judicial probe into the case or entrusting it either with the CBI or the CID.

Lapang said he would wait for the outcome of the fresh police investigation as the case had already been opened by the government and a new investigating officer, K. Prasad, appointed to investigate the involvement of Thomas Nongtdu who was released within 48 hours of his arrest.

Under pressure from the NGOs, the Meghalaya United Alliance (MUA) government has reopened the case in which Nongtdu, the Congress’s nominated member to Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council, funded the jailbreak.

Lapang said his government had nothing to hide and had not remained a mere spectator. He claimed it had acted swiftly and that this was evident from the suspension and arrest of many employees of Shillong jail.

Moving the motion, James quoted the magisterial and judicial inquiry reports and said that the director-general of police, Anil Pradhan, who was then additional DGP (prisons) should own moral responsibility for the loopholes in jail administration that resulted in the escape of seven undertrials.

Referring to the revelations of re-captured undertrial prisoners and the villagers who were witness to the police encounter with the escapees, James said it appeared that the encounter was a faked and needed to be probed.

Supporting the motion, NCP leader P.A. Sangma said: “This cannot be termed a jailbreak; it is walking free from jail.”

Opposition leader Conrad Sangma said Lapang should relinquish the home portfolio. Had Full Moon been captured alive, more information about the jailbreak would have been unearthed, he said.