Activists’ memo to Meghalaya Governor over RTI arrest

Shillong | March 12 : National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy and seven others have shot off a memorandum to Meghalaya governor R.S. Mooshahary condemning the false implication and arrest of Shillong-based RTI activists. RTI activist Mary Anne Pohshna was arrested on March 9 by the police
in an alleged false case. Another activist, Agnes Kharshiing, is likely to be arrested soon. Kharshiing had in 2009 filed a RTI application seeking information pertaining to the jailbreak and subsequent custodial killing of Fullmoon Dhar in June that year. Imprisoned for rape and murder, Dhar was killed in Meghalaya’s Jaintia Hills district.
“The Commission of Inquiry probing the jailbreak is about to nail the persons involved in the custodial killing which indicates a nexus between high-ranking police officials and certain politicians. In order to intimidate and discourage Kharshiing and Pohshna, they have been framed in a false criminal case at the best of police officials (of Jowai, headquarters of Jaintia Hills district),” said the memorandum.
Kharshiing is the president of Civil Society Womens’ Organisation and member of Access to Justice Committee formed by the Supreme Court under the National Legal Services Authority Act. Pohshna is president of JYF (Women’s Wing). The two had on February 28 gone to Jowai to assist a victim of an obscene MMS file a FIR against one Mindluck Tyngkan. Lovely Suting, Tyngkan’s wife, lodged a counter complaint against Kharshiing and Pohshna alleging they assaulted and abused her.
“We demand that the FIR against the RTI activists be quashed and that an independent inquiry and appropriate action be taken against the police officers concerned,” said Roy.