Thaindian News

Shillong, June 2 (IANS) Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma Wednesday assured the assembly that the government would not waste time in completing the probe into infamous Shillong jailbreak after Justice (retd) D.Biswas left the inquiry midway.
“The government is already exercising to have a new commission and there will be no delay to find a replacement for Biswas,” Sangma told the assembly during question hour.

Biswas, who was heading the jailbreak probe, resigned April 10 after the Assam government appointed him as the head of Lok Ayog (public service commission) in Assam.

Seven people, including two undertrials, escaped from the Shillong jail May 31 last year. Most of them were caught again while Fullmoon Dhar, the ringleader, was gunned down by police in the Jaintia Hills.

The commission constituted by the previous D.D. Lapang-led government July 23 last year, was asked to complete the probe, including an alleged politician-criminal nexus, and submit its findings to the government by May 31. Several social groups under the banner ‘Steering Committee Against Murder of Democracy (SCAMoD)’, pressurised the government to probe the incident.

The SCAMoD had termed Biswas’s resignation as a “delaying tactic to cover up the truth”.

The chief minister said the government is taking up the matter with utmost sincerity.

“Justice delayed is justice denied and the government does not gain by not doing what it is expected of it to do, and there was no reason to doubt the government’s sincerity.”

In March, two undertrial prisoners who had appeared before the Biswas Commission, claimed that Dhar, the ringleader who is now dead, was in touch with a “Congress Lok Sabha candidate” before he escaped from prison.

Synsharlang Thongni and Khrawborlang Marbaniang were two undertrials who, along with Dhar and four others, escaped from the Shillong jail.

A Congress district council member from Jaintia Hills, Thomas Nongtdu, is also alleged to have financed the jailbreak.