TURA: The bodies of the three civilians, including an MeECL contractor, who were executed in cold blood by Garo militants inside the Nokrek national park have been handed over to the respective families by police following post-mortem examination of the bodies on Friday afternoon at Tura Civil Hospital.
The story of the gruesome murders has taken a new turn with Tura police placing under arrest the lone survivor Manseng N Sangma following an FIR lodged against him by the family of Rutherford Marak, the slain MeECL contractor.
Tura police have also filed a suo moto case on the incident.
The arrest of Manseng Sangma, who originally hailed from Ruga area but had settled down in Sampalgre-Wadanang region of Tura, was necessitated given that he had been giving contradictory statements on the incident and even going to the extent of claiming that he did not know the identity of the two other victims who were executed by the militants on Monday.
Drawing a blank for two long days in their search for the victims in the Nokrek region, police took Manseng Sangma to identify the site of the killings on Thursday and located the area from where the three bodies were retrieved.
The identity of the two victims has been revealed as Lordibirth M Sangma (39) of Damal Asim who was residing in Cherangre locality of Tura and Semington M Sangma (25) of Ampati who was residing in Alotgre locality of the town.
While the MeECL contractor was laid to rest at a cemetery in Tura, the bodies of Semington and Lordibirth were taken to Ampati and Damal Asim, respectively.
Family members of the three victims have squarely blamed Manseng Sangma for the deaths of their loved ones. It is alleged that Manseng had been insisting on Rutherford to accompany him to Sasatgre since Saturday night and even landed at his doorstep early Sunday morning urging him to visit the MeECL project site.
Meanwhile, the wife of Lordibirth Sangma revealed that her husband had no intention of going to Sasatgre and was instead preparing to leave for Damal Asim where they are running a food stall for the ongoing ABDK Sobha. He had reportedly gone to Tura Bazaar to purchase some items for the food stall when he disappeared and was never heard of again.