SP (Infiltration) LB Rapthap’s answer, ‘yes’, recorded as ‘I don’t know’
SHILLONG: The ongoing judicial inquiry commission into the Shillong jailbreak incident witnessed an unusual situation as a statement – “yes” – recorded on Monday was changed into – “I don’t know” – , on Tuesday.
The members of SCAMoD were surprised to find out the “attempt” to misquote the Superintendent of Police (Infiltration), LB Rapthap and asked the police officer to crosscheck his statements.
Some of the queries which Rapthap had answered in the affirmative were misquoted as “I dont know”. During this whole debate, Rapthap who was the East Khasi Hills SP when the jailbreak took place was called to appear before the commission to verify whether his statement was misquoted.
Rapthap confirmed that his “yes” to all those queries were recorded as “I dont know”. However, who changed the “yes” to “I don’t know” is still a mystery.
In his statement before the inquiry commission on Monday, Rapthap had admitted that the former Acting DGP Anil Pradhan was monitoring the case and not interested in bringing out the truth and in detecting the people who were responsible for the controversial Shillong Jailbreak on May 31 2009.
“The former DGP was attempting to divert the attention of the public from jail breaking and nexus of the criminals with politicians and others,” the SP (Infiltration) said. The government counsel KTS Tulsi had objected to recording the statement made in this connection.
Rapthap also said the jailbreak mastermind Fullmoon Dhar’s girlfriend Ibatiplang Kharkongor had confessed that she had received Rs 3 lakh from the then Rajya Sabha MP, Thomas Nongtdu, which was delivered to Fullmoon Dhar in Shillong Jail.
Nongtdu had claimed in his statement that the money was given to Ibatiplang for treatment of her mother and he was not aware of the money being used for other purposes.
The SP (Infiltration), however, said he came to know about Nongtdu’s arrest on June 3 or 4 while maintaining that he did not pass the order for his arrest.
“DSP (Crime) Vivek Syiem informed me that he got directions from former DGP Anil Pradhan and IGP (SB) SK Jain to arrest Nongtdu in the night,” he said while asserting that as per the procedure, the DSP has to go through the SP in all circumstances.
On June 5 2009, DSP (Crime), Officer-in-Charge and Investigating Officer were called by the DGP as to why Thomas Nongtdu was remanded in 14 days judicial custody and he also asked them to submit a prayer for his discharge.
“Despite the statement of Ibatiplang, the decision for his discharge was not done at my level but was done at the DGP level,” Rapthap said.
When asked about the modus operandi of money being smuggled into the jail, the former East Khasi Hills SP said the money was given near the Jail Road, petrol pump to the warden and sometimes it was kept in the Xerox machine shop outside the jail.
Meanwhile, former Jaintia Hills SP MK Singh was cross-examined by the inquiry commission on Tuesday. Singh would again be cross-examined on Wednesday.