Police arrested two individuals suspected to have been involved in recent murders in Ichamati and Mawlai Mawroh and they were produced in the district court today where they were both remanded in police custody.
The two – Cleenstar Shabong from Nongthymmai and Gary Rinaldy Mawlieh from Mawlai Mawroh – are both members of the Khasi Students Union (KSU), which reacted with fury to the arrests and issued a subtle threat that further arrests of its members would lead to law and order trouble.
Mawlieh (25) is the first person to be arrested in connection with the April 10 murder of Arjun Ray, a 52-year-old construction worker. He and two other labourers were violently set upon by masked attackers and Ray died of severe head injuries the same day.
Shabong (27), meanwhile, is the third person arrested in the double Ichamati murders of March 27. Ishan Singh and Sujit Dutta were killed in separate incidents in Ichamati and Dalda following a protest against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) organised by the KSU that day. The other two suspects arrested in this case were taken in by police on April 2. Both are from Sohra and are also KSU members.
While Shabong has been remanded to seven days police custody, Mawlieh has been remanded to 12 days. Both have had prior run-ins with the law – Shabong is a suspect in 10 other criminal cases (charge-sheeted in one) and Mawlieh three (charge-sheeted in two), police informed.
But to the KSU, both are innocent and are victims of police harassment.
KSU members, including president Lambokstar Marngar and general secretary Donald V Thabah were at the court in support of the pair today.
Speaking to reporters, Thabah said that the state government’s objective in detaining members of the pressure group is “to deter them from going forward with their activities towards the betterment and the welfare of the Khasi community.”
He tried to equate these murders with that of KSU member Lurshai Hynniewta, who was killed after an anti-CAA rally in 2020. Police have arrested several persons in connection with that crime but others are allegedly absconding and Thabah said that the police should go after them. Given the slow pace of the Indian justice system, no one has yet been convicted of the Hynniewta murder.
Issuing a veiled threat, Thabah also said that the KSU might be “compelled to take action that might affect the law and order situation in the state.”
