SHILLONG: Mystery surrounds as to how the CCTV camera installed at Marvelene’s Inn in Rilbong run by the family of Home Minister HDR Lyngdoh was found to be damaged and also why the security guard, who was posted at the Inn when the incidents of sexual assault of the 14-year-girl took place, was changed.
Police are examining the two angles of change of the security guard and the damage to the CCTV camera at the Inn.
According to sources, the private security guard of Rapid Action Task from Mawiong was removed one or two days after the incident and the police are trying to find out the reason.
Sources said when the Laban police received the FIR filed by the victim on December 16 last, the police personnel who went to the guest house had to wait for almost two hours before they could examine the CCTV as an operator at the Inn was checking it.
Sources added that the police should have immediately seized the CCTV and the related equipment before allowing anyone to touch them as there will always be a possibility of deletion of footage.
Earlier, the staff had claimed that the CCTV camera was not functioning since November 29 and that it was not repaired.
The Home Minister had in the past said that the CCTV at the guest house was not functioning as it was under repair.
Julius in Nongpoh jail
Like the multiplicity of FIRs in the sex racket case, Mawhati legislator Julius Dorphang is lodged some times in Shillong jail and other times in Nongpoh jail.
After he was arrested, Julius was twice placed under judicial custody in connection with the Shillong case and once in relation to the rape of the girl in a guest house in Ri Bhoi.
Questions are being raised as to whether there was any need to send the accused in two jails though it was the same case related to the sexual abuse of the minor girl.
When contacted, a police official from Ri Bhoi said that since he was in judicial custody in Ri Bhoi, he was placed in Nongpoh jail.
However, Dorphang will be produced in the lower court in Shillong yet again on February 8.
