SHILLONG: Nathaniel Osbert Rymmai, son of Home Minister HDR Lyngdoh and proprietor of Marvelene’s Inn, assured on Tuesday that the family will cooperate with the police department and also hoped for fast justice to the girl.
Talking to media persons for the first time since the rape and trafficking case came to the fore, Rymmai said neither he nor his family had any whiff of what was going on at the guest house.
He was commenting on a question by a reported about the FIR lodged against his father under the POCSO Act for not reporting the trafficking involving a 14-year-old girl.
“I was informed by the manager of the guest house that police personnel had come and they were told that it was the waiter who would bring the girl to the guest house,” he said, adding that the recent turn of events has tarnished the image of the family.
“Other than the arrested waiter (Usha Deb Barman), other waiters were oblivious of the presence of the girl in a room,” he said while clearing the ‘misunderstandings’ so far.
TUR and CSWO have filed an FIR at Laban police station “against the proprietor/owner(s)/management of Marvelene’s Inn, Rilbong, under POCSO Section 21 (1), which holds liable persons for failure to report the commission of an offence or apprehension that an act is likely to be committed under POCSO”.
“The allegations levelled against the family have reached a point where there has been a demand for him to step down as a Minister,” the 26-year-old son said and added that they have supported the police in their probe to dig deep into the trafficking row that surfaced after the girl escaped from the house she was confined in.
Meanwhile, the manager of the Inn, Edmund Paul Kharir, recalling the news report that stated that the waiter took her to the executive room number 302 of the guest house for the clients, said, “The room was not booked except room number 301. If she has claimed that she was crying all night, wouldn’t the person in the adjacent room hear her cry.”
Referring to the news report that said the girl was brought twice to the guest house, he expressed surprise that the girl did not notice him. “The girl mistook Barman alias Bhaity, to be the manager, but in fact, he is only a waiter,” he added.
About registering names of the guests, he said, “We enter only the male member’s name after seeing an ID card.”
