SHILLONG: The pro-ILP agitation has claimed its second victim in the young trader Vikash Nandwal.
The first victim Vidya Devi Chokhani (74), the owner of M/s Satyanarayan Textile, died two days after the arson incident due to suffocation after the smoke filled her room above the shop which had come under petrol bomb attack on September 26 at Police Bazar.
Confirming the death of the old woman as a result of arson, East Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Goyal said on Saturday that the post mortem report revealed that she had died of suffocation.
A case of arson and murder has already been registered and the police are on their job, Goyal said.
The attack was carried out by a group of miscreants numbering around eight equipped with daos (machetes) and knives when Chokhani opened the shutter of his shop at around 8 am.
Besides attacking the trader, who sustained minor injuries, the miscreants also hurled a petrol bomb at the shop, which was completely gutted by fire.
The fire also spread to nearby shop JB Textiles, which was also partially damaged.
Chokhani was residing in the same building where the two garment shops were housed with his family.