GUWAHATI: A sixth Bangladeshi, apprehended by villagers and handed over to the police in Meghalaya’s South West Khasi Hills district, died shortly after he was taken to a local health centre.
At around 4:30 pm on Monday, police received information from the locals of Kaitha Kona village about the apprehension of the intruder, Akram. After rescuing him, the police took him to the health centre for treatment as he suffered grievous injuries.
“Akram was declared brought dead at the Khunjoy primary health centre yesterday,” Superintendent of Police B Jyrwa told the TNIE on Tuesday.
Police said the body of the deceased, a native of Jenaghati village in the Sherpur district of Bangladesh, would be handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF) after the post-mortem.
Five other Bangladeshi suspects – Mubarak Hussain, Mefus Rehman, Jangir Alom, Meruphur Rahman and Saem Hussain – were nabbed by the police and the BSF from different parts of the district on Saturday and Sunday with the help of the villagers.
Meruphur Rahman, allegedly a constable of Bangladesh Police; and Mubarak Hussain are admitted at a local hospital while the three others were remanded to three-day police custody by a local court on Sunday. All these people were allegedly thrashed by the villagers.
The intrusion came to light in the wee hours of Friday when the intruders forcibly entered a shop at Rongdangai village in South West Khasi Hills, which shares a border with Bangladesh. They held a villager, Balsrang Marak, hostage and took him towards New Rongdangai village.
“While moving, the victim was able to free himself and he ran away to one house in New Rongdangai village and locked the door from inside. However, the miscreants chased and banged the door from outside and fired some rounds,” the SP stated earlier.
Later, he added, the family members got scared and when they opened the door, the miscreants entered the house and assaulted Marak before leaving the place.
At around 2:15 pm on the same day, the police received information from a quarry owner that some armed miscreants had entered his land near Khonjoy village.
The SP said that when a police team reached the site, the miscreants, carrying small arms, started running away. The police asked them to stop and fired two rounds in the air but they ran into a forested area.
The personnel recovered an axe, a barbed wire cutter, a screw driver, a small knife, one Bangladesh police ID card, three wireless handsets, three medical prescriptions of Mahfus Bangladesh, ten Bangladeshi currency notes amounting to 769 Bangladesh taka, one Rs 500 Indian currency note, three micro explosives among others.
On Saturday morning, the locals of Khonjoy B village helped the police apprehend Mefus Rehman. Just hours later, a combined team of the police and the BSF apprehended three more suspects from a forest. A fifth suspect was apprehended on Sunday. The police are trying to find out the motive behind intrusion.