Shillong, July 31 : The Meghalaya cabinet today rejected the demand of social organisations to remove state director-general of police Anil Pradhan for messing up the Shillong jailbreak probe and entrusted the onus of tracing all aspects related to the case on the judicial inquiry commission.
“Since the one-man commission headed by retired judge of Gauhati High Court D. Biswas was entrusted to probe all aspects of the Shillong jailbreak, the commission is free to hold any official responsible for the problems related to the jailbreak inquiry,” chief minister D.D. Lapang told reporters after the inquiry.
Lapang said according to the opinion of the cabinet, the administrative report was inconclusive and needed more justification.
Lapang said the parallel judicial inquiry commission constituted by the government would find out the aspects related to the jailbreak and that it could also recommend the names of officials who could be removed for the shoddy inquiry into the case.
The Steering Committee against Murder of Democracy, a conglomeration of NGOs demanding a fair probe into the jailbreak issue, had earlier announced night road blockades in protest against the apathy of the government in removing Pradhan. However, after assurance from the chief minister on Sunday that the cabinet will examine the demand, they had put off the agitation.
The government on July 23 had notified the one-man judicial inquiry commission to probe the Shillong jailbreak. The commission is yet to begin the task.
Lapang had earlier assured the NGOs that action would be taken against those responsible if the administrative report on the jailbreak issue had indicted them.
The cabinet also decided to reduce the timeframe for the completion of the judicial inquiry report from six months to four months.
The NGOs decided to meet soon to take future course of action in the wake of the cabinet move.
In a related development, chief information commissioner G.P. Wahlang asked the police to provide all probe reports into the jailbreak to the Civil Society Women’s Organisation, a prominent organisation of the state.
The organisation’s president, Agnes Kharshiing, had sought information on the police probe reports under the RTI Act. However, the full reports had not been submitted to the applicant, which prompted the chief information commissioner to direct the police to provide relevant information to the applicant within a week.
