Shillong, June 2 (IANS) Police have gunned down Fullmoon Dhar, who masterminded Sunday’s jailbreak here, and arrested two other escapees, officials said here Tuesday.
Dhar was killed in a gunbattle with the police at Um-Pawai in the Jaintia Hills forest, 40 km north of here, late Monday, a day after he and six other undertrials sensationally escaped from the Shillong district jail.

“We have also apprehended two criminals, who also escaped from the jail while a combing operation was on to nab the three other jail breakers,” Director General of Police Anil Pradhan told reporters.

The government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the prison break.

“These undertrials were involved in murders, rapes, highway robberies, burglaries and car thefts. Several criminal cases were registered against all of them in various police stations in the Meghalaya capital,” said Inspector General of Police (Prisons) Kulbir Krishan.

Police suspect that the weapons used by Dhar during the escape might have been smuggled into the jail by his friends in connivance with some of the jail staff.

“Besides the magisterial probe, a departmental inquiry is also now on to unearth the truth behind the jail break,” Krishan said.