Meghalaya villagers nab jailbreaker who escaped lynching, hand him over to cops

The jailbreaker narrowly escaped a mob lynching on Sunday in Meghalaya’s West Jaintia Hills district, where four others who escaped with him were thrashed to death

A day after four jailbreakers were lynched by residents in Shangpung in Meghalaya’s West Jaintia Hills district, the villagers on Monday nabbed the fifth one who fled from the Jowai prison and handed him over to the police, officials said. The sixth escaped prisoner is yet to be apprehended.

The Meghalaya police are now on the hunt to apprehend the sixth jailbreaker. (Sourced)

Police said jailbreaker Ramesh Dkhar was accosted by a group of residents of the Shangpung village while he was trying to flee. Dkhar narrowly escaped a mob lynching on Sunday at Thadmoothlong-Shangpung area, where the four others who escaped with him were thrashed to death.

Unlike Sunday when villagers attacked the four, residents apprehended Dkhar, tied him up and paraded him through the village before handing him over to the police.

“Soon after the villagers apprehended Ramesh Dkhar, we were alerted and a team rushed to the Shangpung village to arrest him before matters escalated like yesterday,” West Jaintia Hills superintendent of police (SP) B. K. Marak told HT over phone. “I must appreciate the people of the Shangpung area who controlled their emotions and did not take the law into their own hands,” he added.

The four prisonder who were killed on Sunday included a murder accused named I Love You Talang, Marsanki Tariang, a murder convict serving rigorous imprisonment, and undertrial prisoners Lodestar Tang and Shidorki Dkhar.

The police are now on the hunt to apprehend Rikmenlang Lamare, an undertrial prisoner.

Meanwhile, the SP said that a suo-moto case against the lynching incident was registered in Jowai police station on Sunday.

The six prisoners escaped from the Jowai District Jail on Saturday afternoon. This was the second jailbreak from the same facility in three months.